BAADER Harvesting Solutions

If everyone used the BAADER 101 Stun & Bleed System, every salmon would be harvested humanely. That’s according to Dennis Schreiber, Vice President Sales & Service, BAADER.

“Roughly 50% of every industrially farmed salmon is currently harvest using one of our BAADER solutions, and that is the majority of farmed salmon in Norway today,” Schreiber explains in the latest instalment of Salmon Sessions.

With his colleagues, Bodo Hensen, Product Manager Salmon, and Dirk Runge, Project Manager Fish, the trio explain why the BAADER 101 is the most game-changing machine in the salmon and sea trout processing industry and ensures both animal welfare and superior product quality.

The Background: Increased Consumer Expectations, Science and Legislation

At the beginning of the 21st century, citizens around the world took on an increased awareness of fish welfare. At the same time, science began revealing how stress adversely affects product quality.

“The end-consumer not only wants superior food, but they are also increasingly cautious about how food has been produced and how it has been treated”, highlights Schreiber.

In 2009, the EU passed legislation to protect animals during the slaughtering process. According to Council Regulation (EC) No. 1099/2009 — which applies to the slaughter of farmed fish — animals should be rendered unconscious and insensible by stunning to avoid pain, fear, or distress prior to the procedure. According to leading animal scientists such as Vies and Stien [1], this is best achieved by ensuring that the fish induces an immediate loss of consciousness and sensibility, which lasts until death or when an instantaneous induction is not possible.

Against this background, BAADER decided to bring a humane stun & bleed solution, the BAADER 101, to market very early on.

The Promise: Painless, Fearless and Stress-free Stunning

One of the reasons the BAADER 101 is different from other available solutions is that once fish are stunned, the stunning is irreversible, ensuring that the fish cannot regain consciousness, thereby keeping the fish from any suffering.

The technology applied is referred to as percussive stunning. The skull is struck with a solid instrument, i.e. one solid body is forcibly struck against another [2]. The objective of percussive stunning is to induce immediate insensibility by administering a severe blow to the skull of the fish. As a result, the fish remains unconscious until death.

Due to variations in size and species, proper positioning and the force of the percussive stun are challenging to older systems. In the BAADER 101 System, the fish is held properly in position by use of centering guides for an exact stun.

Users can adjust the percussive coil to make sure it delivers a proper hit of the skull-zone for respective size ranges. The machine can be configured as an automatic swim-in or manual (wet or dry infeed) version.

“The BAADER 101 let the animals do what their instincts tell them to do: swimming in the water against the current”, explains Hensen. This is made possible by leveraging innovative technology that creates an artificial counter current in the tanks. The salmon feels comfortable and swims against the current on its own accord. The tanks are covered to keep light incidence to a minimum further reducing possible stress levels.

The full strength of a BAADER 101 system is achieved when combined with the optional bleeding solution. The bleeding cut is performed right after they are stunned when heart activity still persists. This integrated solution provides animal welfare stunning and outstanding bleeding results at the same time.

Welfare Translates to Product Quality

These days, farmers spend all their energy raising beautiful, healthy fish.

“We want to make sure that the fish is not only being treated the way it should but also that we maintain the quality and meet our customers' expectations”, Schreiber explains.

In order to ensure the best quality for the consumer, healthy animals need to grow up and live in an environment that is as close to natural as possible.

“Companies invest a lot of money for the rearing of the animals”, Hensen says. “That's why it is so important to make sure the first step of the processing does not ruin this effort”.

That is precisely what the BAADER 101 does. The low-stress levels the animals endure during the BAADER harvesting process ensure that fish can be longer and better processed. For the customer, this means better meat quality, more natural colour, and—most of all—better taste.

Low Maintenance - High Serviceability

In the episode, Dirk Runge, BAADER’s fish project manager, demonstrates how to add easy operation and serviceability to the machine for additional benefits. Each stunner can be removed, cleaned and serviced without having to use tools, thereby ensuring easy maintenance.

The purely pneumatically operated machine possesses a pneumatic control box, which is tidy, easy to understand, and thus maintenance-friendly. The control panel is secure, easy to understand, and easy to operate.

This Salmon Session installment on Harvesting Solutions ends with a good demo that all operators can follow.

Fully Traceability of Every Fish – the B’Logic Software

B’Logic is the BAADER software solution for system assessment and analysis. The system delivers valuable data regarding efficiency, utilization, and more—and is accessible by all kinds of devices on- and off-site. It enables users to capture data throughout the entire process, from the point the fish is entering the factory to the point the fish ends up as a fillet in a box.

If you want to learn how to gut 600 kg of fish per minute with only five operators, join us for next week’s Salmon Session on Thursday, October 15 when the focus will be on the BAADER Gutting Solution—the key element within a processing line.

[1]van de Vis H. et al. (2020): Welfare of Farmed Fish in Different Production Systems and Operations. In: Kristiansen T., Fernö A., Pavlidis M., van de Vis H. (eds) The Welfare of Fish. Animal Welfare, vol 20. Springer, Cham.

[2] https://www.hsa.org.uk/humane-harvesting-of-fish-percussive-stunning/percussive-stunning