That was the conclusion that could be drawn after the first annual meeting in WaSeaBi.

The meeting was planned to take place in Bilbao in Spain where the Spanish partners had put together an interesting programme including a visit to the facilities of Barna, an SME specialized in fishmeal and fish oil production from by-products and AZTI, a research centre specialised in the food and marine value chains that carries out strategic and applied research to generate new knowledge.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic the partner meeting was converted into an online meeting, which took place from 3-4 June. Although, the partners had looked forward to meeting in person, the online meeting was a great alternative which went smoothly. During the two days the partners shared the results achieved in the project so far.

The WaSeaBi project has now been running for one year – and a lot has happened!

A questionnaire to the industry concerning bottlenecks in maintaining and value adding of seafood side-streams has been sent out and completed by several companies.

A new filleting line which can sort side-streams into 4 different fractions has been set up and is currently being tested.

Samples of liquid and solid side-streams have been collected from the different industry partners in the project, which have been analysed.

Great advancements have been made in relation to recovering flavouring agents from mussel side-streams and the first attempts to develop savoury ingredients from cod side-streams are looking promising.