Batsfjordbruket AS has installed fully automatic Valka system for grading whole fish into tubs and packing to EPS boxes Batsfjordbruket AS has for over 30 years been fortunate in working with the local fishing fleet as one of Finnmark’s largest sourcing station for groundfish as well as operating fillet production plant. “The sourcing and distribution of whole cod involve establishing a good working relationship with both the local fishermen and the fleet as well as our customers and provide them with the best possible service and products,” says Frank Kristiansen General manager of Båtsfjordbruket. Traditionally all packing of fresh white fish in Norway has been done manually, and that was also the case in Båtsfjord, something that Frank Kristiansen and his co-workers wanted to modernize. He had seen innovative grading and packing solutions that Valka had delivered to the salmon industry and after some brainstorming,
Valka offered Båtsfjordbruket a modified version of such a system. A flexible system for simultaneous packing of multiple species at speed up to 150 fishes a minute. Whole gutted or H/G
fish is fed to the grading system by 1-2 operators. From there the fish is either packed directly to EPS boxes, sent to manual packing or tubs. The automatic packing includes automatic box dispenser, automatic weighing, label applicator and ice dosing for both bottom and top ice. The manual filling station is for the largest fish or products in small volume and integrated with the automatic packing line, so the box dispenser, weighing, labeling and ice dosing are automatic. The tub packing is fully automatic and can pack simultaneously into six tubs. The entire system is controlled with Valka’s Rapid-Fish software. To further improve the process Valka and Maritech AS collaborated to integrate landing notes from Maritech’s Sluttsedel system
into RapidFish. ”This has already proven to be a good decision for us; the system is working as expected and we saw benefits from the very start”, says Frank finally.
