Smart Farm AS

Innovation and tradition meet at sea. For over 30 years, from Stavanger, our SmartUnit technology has turned hard, risky harvesting into something automated, safer, and far more efficient, with over 30 tonnes an hour, systems that last 25+ years, and healthier oceans.

From Norway's fjords to coastlines worldwide. Welcome aboard. 🌊

Summer's winding down, and with less sun on your plate, this is precisely when your body starts asking for a little more support.

Most people reach for a supplement bottle. But one of the nutrients we top up most, vitamin B12, is right there in the ocean, in one of the tastiest forms you can eat.

Per 100 g, blue mussels deliver:
-24g protein
-1000% of your daily B12
-163% of daily selenium
-296% of daily manganese
-84% of daily iron
-4.5g fat (mostly omega-3)

B12 keeps your energy up, supports red blood cell production, and protects your nervous system, all the things you want going into the darker months.

So as the season turns, why not make your supplementation something you actually look forward to? A pot of mussels, a bit of garlic and white wine, and you've covered a full year's worth of B12 in a single delicious meal. 😉

At Smart Farm, we develop the technology behind low-trophic aquaculture, the systems that make it possible to cultivate and harvest bi-valves, sea squirts, and seaweed at scale.

Our technology covers the full operation. On the growing side, our SmartUnits systems hold the crop at the right place in the water column, built for the currents, depth, and species of each site. On the harvesting side, our Mermaid's Reaper and Neptune's Reaper do the work underwater, from husbandry and cleaning to the harvest itself.

The design changes how the work gets done. It reduces heavy manual labor, improves safety for the crew, and makes the operation something that can actually scale, from sheltered fjords to exposed offshore sites.

More than 30 years in, our systems are running now in over 20 countries across five continents.

Thirty years in aquaculture, and Bjørn and Alise are still where it happens: on the water, on-site, on the move.

Meet the people behind Smart Farm. Bjørn Aspøy and Alise Karlsen Aspøy founded the company in 2000 and still run it themselves.

What started in one fjord now runs in more than 20 countries across five continents. The technology is proven, the systems are working, and the two of them are still as hands-on as day one.

You'll find them at the biggest expos, dropping in on industry events, and meeting the sector face-to-face. They’re out on-site, checking how the systems perform in real conditions. On the water, watching, adjusting, making sure everything holds up the way it should. Always on the move and always close to where low-trophic farming is heading.

That's how they built Smart Farm, and it's how they still run it. When you reach out, you reach Bjørn and Alise, the people who founded the company, and the people who deliver.

Blue mussels are one of the oldest foods of the North Atlantic, and people were eating shellfish long before anyone wrote it down.

By the time the Greeks did write it down, mussels were already on the table. In a comedy by Epicharmus of Syracuse, from the fifth century BC, a whole spread of seafood is carried in to a feast, and mussels are named in the list alongside oysters and scallops. Centuries later Athenaeus, in his Deipnosophists, still has them among the small dishes that open a proper dinner. Around the Aegean, gathering and eating shellfish went back thousands of years before either of them.

For most of that history the method never changed: you took what the tide left on the rocks. Growing them at scale, safely and by the tonne, is the part that had to wait. That is the part Smart Farm carries forward. The cultivation and harvesting technology we build lets growers work that same ancient food the way this century can actually do it, with the heavy and dangerous work left to the machine so the crew stays safe.

The oldest food we know of, carried forward.

🎥 How the Romans prepared mussels: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1032858895837104

🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube 👇

What does it actually take to harvest safely at sea? We're making it possible.

Smart Farm was built to make demanding work at sea safer and more reliable. Behind every harvest sits a crew working in tough, open-water conditions, and that's precisely where our system comes in, taking on the heaviest and most hazardous parts of the job.

In this video, Magnus Petersen, Research & Development Director at Pronofa ASA explains how safety is built into the way we work and what that looks like in practice.

Safety by Design | Smart Farm The Smart Farm system was designed specifically to reduce labor req...

Europe's appetite for low-footprint protein is growing, and policy is pushing in the same direction.

The European Environment Agency reports that global consumption of alternative proteins could rise more than sevenfold by 2035 and that a coordinated shift toward diversified protein sources could lower EU agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by around 5% by 2035.
European Environment Agency

Here is what that conversation often misses. Not all proteins carry the same footprint. According to the World Resources Institute, farmed seaweeds and bivalves such as mussels sit among the lowest greenhouse gas emitters of any blue food, well below fed species like salmon or shrimp, where feed alone can account for up to 80% of the carbon footprint.
The benefit runs deeper than emissions. Blue mussels are a low-carbon protein that also cleans the water around it, filtering out excess nutrients as it grows.

This is no longer theory. Our client Purply already brings low-trophic protein to Norwegian shelves, sold at REMA 1000, at a footprint of just 0.2 kg CO₂-eq per kg.

Low emissions. Cleaner water. Real nutrition.

The case for low-trophic species has never been the problem. Growing them reliably, at a commercial scale, in demanding offshore conditions is. That is what we build at Smart Farm: cultivation and harvesting systems designed to make sustainable protein production dependable and scalable.

We will be at AquaNext 2026. If you are working on the future of sustainable protein, let's talk.

https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/newsroom/news/diversifying-europes-protein-supply
https://www.wri.org/insights/blue-food-sustainable-seafood-diet
https://www.the-possible.com/mussels-a-solution-in-the-sustainable-food-chain/

Thirty years in aquaculture, and we are still learning something new all the time.
We exhibit at the biggest expos, drop in on plenty of others, and meet the industry face to face whenever we can. We also make time for events that teach us about the trade and about growing a business in general, and we love sharing what we pick up along the way. We are always on the move, so if you want to catch us, come find us at AquaNext in Stavanger on 22 and 23 September Booth E-7250!

Summer on a plate ☀️

Mussels, a hot pan, a little wine, good bread. Simple food that tastes like the season.

Here's the part worth knowing: low-trophic species like mussels are some of the most sustainable protein on the planet. They feed on what's already in the sea and filter the water as they grow. Eating lower on the food chain has rarely tasted this good.

👉 Full recipe here: https://rickstein.com/blog/recipe-moules-mariniere-from-rick-steins-cornwall/

What's your favourite way to cook mussels, the classic method with white wine, or a twist from your family recipe? Drop it in the comments.

🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube 👇

What does it actually take to scale low-trophic aquaculture? We're making it possible.

Smart Farm was built to help operations grow efficiently and reliably. Behind Purply, Pronofa ASA's product made from tunicates, sits a farming operation that needs to expand without losing consistency or control, and that's exactly where our system comes in.

In this video, Magnus Petersen, Research & Development Director at Pronofa ASA, explains why he calls Smart Farm the missing link to scaling tunicate farming at a commercial level and what that looks like in practice.

Why Smart Farm | Magnus Petersen, Pronofa ASA Smart Farm was built to scale low-trophic aquaculture operations, a...