[New tanks, part of salmon producer Atlantic Sapphire’s expansion plan]
[Sign on door to Atlantic Sapphire’s salmon egg hatchery]
[Employees cleaning trays holding newly-hatched salmon]
Damien Claire (interview): “We’re the first ones to take the entire process to raise salmon on land, in a tank, from egg to harvest. And there’s been a lot of learning, whether it’s technology, whether it’s construction, whether it’s timings.”
[Worker]
[Newly-hatched salmon swimming in tray]
[Hatchery manager looking at trays]
Damien Claire (interview): “So, the pinkish orange that you see is the yolk sac, actually. It’s not the fish itself. So, when the fish hatches, the yolk sac is attached to the fish itself. And the first 5 to 6 weeks, the fish is going to feed off that orangish yolk sac.”
[Older hatchlings swimming in tray]
[Employee feeding young salmon in freshwater]
[Young salmon swimming]
Damien Claire (interview): “After the fish is done hatching and feeding from the yolk sac, we transfer them, and bring the trays and transfer them manually into our start feeding department. This is where the fingerlings are going to start at the bottom of the tank and slowly are going to move up to the surface to start feeding themselves.”
[Atlantic Sapphire CEO and cofounder Johan Andreassen feeding young salmon in freshwater]
[Worker monitoring machine in smolt room, where salmon are prepared for transition from freshwater to saltwater]
[Salmon moving through machine]
[Salmon swimming]
Damien Claire (interview): “As you can see, on the transfer process, we do not handle the fish anymore through the life cycle. The fish is pumped through a slow current, through pipes on the ground, go to the grater and then are dropped directly into the next tanks where they’ll spend the next seven weeks. This process of moving the fish happens seven times in the freshwater stage and then another two or three times in the saltwater stage.”
[Salmon swimming in saltwater tank]
[Feeding mechanism above saltwater tank]
[Feed dropping into water]
Damien Claire (interview): “The fish is going to go through internal changes. It’s going to prepare its organ to breathe in saltwater, and it’s also going to go from brownish green to silver. Once the fish is ready, we give them the first winter, we drop the temperature and the lights, and once they’re done with smoltification, they will actually go from swimming against the currents and they will turn around in the tank to swim with the currents. By doing so, they tell us we’re ready to leave the river, swim downstream all the way to the ocean.”
[Weighing salmon]
[Whole salmon in box coming down conveyor belt]
[Harvested salmon in ice bath being dumped into machine]
[Salmon moving on conveyor belt]
Damien Claire (interview): “The fish is then bled, cleaned, gutted, we remove the viscera, and chilled, ultra chilled for processing, quality and shelf life.”
[Worker packing salmon fillets]
[Label]
Damien Claire (interview): “So, I think that here it’s about inclusion, it’s about trying to be leaders, trying to drive the industry forward and trying to be as sustainable as we can because feeding the world is going to take more than one single solution.”
[Chef preparing sushi in Atlantic Sapphire test kitchen]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.