The egg from which it hatched came from Iceland. Almost two years earlier, it had arrived with 4,999 others, each weighing about 0.2 grams, in a small box packed with dry ice and equipped with a sensor that transmitted the temperature in real time to several people in Iceland and Israel. The eggs spent 16 hours in transit, with a stopover in Frankfurt.<\/p>\n
At Ben-Gurion International Airport, after an inspection by a representative of the Veterinary Services, the eggs, pink and nothing like the familiar orange salmon roe, were handed to a customs broker, who drove them to the arrivals area. Waiting there was a tall man with a slight Dutch accent. He signed a document, took the box and drove it to Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael in northern Israel. More shipments of eggs arrived later.<\/p>\n
For 45 days, the eggs remained in an incubator filled with water kept at 6 degrees Celsius (about 43 degrees Fahrenheit), replicating the cold conditions of their native habitat. Eventually, some 10,000 fry hatched, though about 10 percent did not survive. The newly hatched fish began moving around on their bellies, exercising and feeding on their yolk sacs.<\/p>\n
Twenty-one months passed from the day that salmon hatched in the incubator until Dr. Snir Azaria, 40, co-founder and CEO of the startup Inland Ocean, brought it into Doktor’s kitchen. Azaria holds a doctorate in marine biology and aquaculture. Five years ago, he founded the company with Prof. Jaap van Rijn \u2013 the tall man who had collected the eggs at Ben-Gurion Airport \u2013 and entrepreneur Nimrod Gliksman.<\/p>\n
The company’s goal is to develop systems for farming salmon in closed, environmentally friendly land-based facilities, where the same water is continuously recycled rather than discharged into the environment as wastewater. It also aims to solve the problem of off-flavor in farmed fish and help address the global food security challenge.<\/p>\n
According to the researchers, eliminating existing fish farms without providing an alternative could reduce the food supply and drive up fish prices, disproportionately affecting lower-income populations. The company’s system, they say, makes it possible to raise salmon almost anywhere there is electricity, water and sufficient space, making the production of high-quality protein less dependent on the oceans and less vulnerable to climate change.<\/p>\n
Azaria watched intently as Doktor cleaned and filleted his salmon, then used it to prepare three different dishes. The chef’s verdict would be a crucial test of whether decades of research and five nerve-wracking years of startup work could produce something that benefits the environment while also making Azaria and his partners wealthy.<\/p>\n
The modern salmon farming industry began in Norway in the early 1960s. The first modern floating net cage was introduced in 1962, and within a few years salmon farming had proved commercially viable. By 1970, the industry was expanding rapidly along the Norwegian coast, eventually becoming one of the country’s most important industries, second only to oil and gas<\/a>.<\/p>\n Its success soon spread beyond Norway. Until the 1980s, raw salmon was rarely eaten in Japan because of concerns about parasites in local Pacific salmon. In 1985, Norway launched a campaign to convince Japanese consumers that its farmed salmon was safe to eat raw. After nearly a decade of working with chefs, restaurants and retailers, Norwegian salmon exports to Japan soared from just two tons in 1980 to more than 45,000 tons 20 years later.<\/p>\n As sushi gained popularity in the United States and worldwide, Norwegian salmon became an alternative to scarce bluefin tuna and eventually one of sushi’s most popular ingredients. Israel has high per-capita salmon consumption. According to the Norwegian Seafood Council<\/a>, the average Israeli ate 3.7 kilograms of salmon in 2023.<\/p>\n One of the industry’s main problems is its impact on wild salmon. The number returning to Norway has fallen from more than one million in the mid-1980s to about 323,000 in 2024, the lowest figure ever recorded. According to the Norwegian Scientific Advisory Committee for Atlantic Salmon, salmon farming and climate change are the biggest threats to the country’s wild salmon populations<\/a>.<\/p>\n Wild salmon are remarkable fish. They hatch from eggs laid in gravel on the bottom of freshwater rivers and spend their first years there. After undergoing a physiological change that allows them to adapt to seawater, they embark on journeys of thousands of kilometers through the ocean, where they grow and reach sexual maturity. After one or several years, they return to the rivers where they were born to reproduce, likely aided by a highly developed sense of smell and an ability to navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field. After spawning in their natal waters, most salmon species die.<\/p>\n The lives of industrially farmed salmon are harsh. They are kept at high densities and suffer high mortality rates. Stress and pain weaken their immune systems, making them more susceptible to diseases and parasites such as sea lice. Salmon that escape from cages can transmit diseases to wild salmon, further endangering wild populations. Fish feces, urine, uneaten food and some of the substances used in farming are discharged directly into the body of water where the farm is located \u2013 whether a fjord, bay, inlet or coastal area.<\/p>\n The accumulation of waste on the seabed and the enrichment of the water with nutrients are among the salmon farming industry’s main environmental impacts. Technological solutions exist that isolate the fish from the sea and prevent pollution, but they are very expensive and therefore not widely used. In early August, Australia’s ABC News aired an investigation<\/a> that exposed pressure on scientists to refrain from criticizing the industry.<\/p>\n Related Articles<\/p>\n Azaria is a third-generation farmer from Moshav Ahituv in central Israel. His family grew cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes. He saw firsthand how difficult farmers’ lives could be, but from childhood he knew he wanted to work in agriculture. He loves nature, has five sons and is deeply concerned about the future of the planet.<\/p>\n “When I was a kid, there was this famous campaign, ‘Israel is drying up.’<\/a> We on the farms felt it firsthand, and I understood the importance of water in our lives. That’s why, after the army, I went to study marine biology at Ruppin Academic Center,” he recounts.<\/p>\n In his third year, he met van Rijn, 70, who came to give a guest lecture. Van Rijn was born into a fishing family in a coastal village in the Netherlands and grew up seeing the physical and economic hardships faced by those who made their living from fishing. That experience led him to devote his career to developing sustainable methods of fish farming. He studied tropical agriculture in the Netherlands and came to Israel in 1976 for a practical internship, after which he was offered a job at a laboratory in Eilat.<\/p>\n Van Rijn says he fell in love with Israel and the pioneering spirit he found there and quickly knew he would stay. He married an Israeli woman and started a family. Fifty years have passed since then. He went on to complete a master’s degree and doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For decades, he researched biological water-treatment systems for aquaculture and served as head of the university’s Department of Animal Sciences.<\/p>\n Prof. Jaap van Rijn. He was about to retire when the idea for the startup came along. Credit: Rami Shllush<\/p>\n Prof. Jaap van Rijn. He was about to retire when the idea for the startup came along. Credit: Rami Shllush<\/p>\n As early as the 1990s, van Rijn developed and operated a closed fish farming<\/a> system with no wastewater discharge, in which the same water is continuously recycled rather than released into the environment. At the heart of the system is a biological filter populated by bacteria. The bacteria break down the toxic ammonia excreted by the fish, converting it into nitrate and maintaining water quality. In the next stage, bacteria convert the accumulated nitrate into gaseous nitrogen, an inert gas that dissipates naturally into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n The system, he says, successfully produced tens of tons of fish using very little water, just 40 liters per kilogram of fish, less than the amount needed to grow a kilogram of tomatoes.<\/p>\n “Hearing Jaap’s lecture was like seeing all the stars align for me,” Azaria says. “What he talked about was practical, agricultural and very environmentally friendly, and that was the direction I was looking for.”<\/p>\n Several months later, after the two spoke, Azaria began his master’s studies in van Rijn’s laboratory at the Faculty of Agriculture and later completed his doctorate there.<\/p>\n “Van Rijn is a very significant figure in my life and someone who truly gave me a chance and freedom of action,” he recounts. “He sent me all over the world to learn and meet people and believed in me from the start, even though I hadn’t been an outstanding student before. Whenever I entered the lab with the system he had invented, I was amazed to see the fish, sea bass, denis [gilthead sea bream], saltwater and freshwater fish, growing while everything ran smoothly. I was also amazed to discover that the water these fish lived in had been circulating there for 15 years. But there was one problem: The fish had an off-flavor.”<\/p>\n “The salmon market in the U.S. is the largest in the world, and the vast majority of the salmon consumed there is imported. We want to build farms there. We’re working with two Native American tribes to establish farms on their reservations.”<\/p>\n Snir Azaria<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n “Because besides the bacteria that break down ammonia, there are all sorts of other bacteria in biofilters. These bacteria don’t just break things down; they also release substances. One example is a group of bacteria called actinomycetes. They produce a compound called geosmin, which means ‘earth smell’ in Greek. It’s what gives us, for example, the smell of the first rain.”<\/p>\n So how is this off-flavor prevented today?<\/p>\n “Fish farmers have developed a method called purging, or pre-marketing purification. When the fish reach market size, they are removed from the tank, transferred to another tank and flushed with large amounts of fresh water. So basically, all the water saved during the growth phase using these and other filters is now wasted in order to bring the fish up to the desired quality.<\/p>\n “This process is particularly problematic for salmon in terms of their welfare, because for the one to two weeks they spend in fresh, clean, flowing water, they also don’t eat, after having eaten 24\/7 for two years. The fish lose 10 percent of their weight, their color, which everyone expects, becomes less intense, and all of this also means lost income for the farmer. My doctoral research focused on solving the off-flavor problem.”<\/p>\n “This is a known problem in all closed fish farming systems,” van Rijn says. “Before Snir’s doctorate, we worked with other researchers to figure out how we could prevent the growth of the bacteria that produce these substances, and we realized it was impossible. They’re part of the natural bacterial population, and you can’t selectively remove them. So we understood that we needed to find another way to get rid of the substance.<\/p>\n “We saw that where fish sludge accumulated, the concentration of geosmin decreased. That’s how we identified the group of bacteria capable of breaking it down, along with other substances.”<\/p>\n “My thesis essentially started at this point,” Azaria continues. “We studied this group of bacteria, grew them in Petri dishes, sequenced their DNA, built mathematical models and conducted all sorts of experiments to understand what these bacteria needed to work better. We were a bit like architects for bacteria<\/a>. We thought about how to create an environment for these guys that would benefit them and increase their activity.”<\/p>\n Based on this understanding, the researchers developed a new filtration medium: fatty microspheres that mimic the properties of sludge. The microspheres attract geosmin molecules, allowing bacteria to break down the compounds that cause off-flavor. After developing a series of prototypes, the researchers created a biological reactor that they say significantly reduced the off-flavor problem.<\/p>\n “When we saw that the solution really worked, we realized we had an advantage that no one else in the world had yet achieved,” Azaria says. “We managed to solve a problem that was one of the stumbling blocks for closed fish farming systems, and this advantage largely stemmed from Jaap being a pioneer in the field.”<\/p>\n When Azaria completed his doctorate, van Rijn, who was about to retire, offered his last doctoral student a postdoctoral position at Cornell University. Azaria initially accepted, but ultimately decided to found a startup instead. “It was important to get Jaap’s blessing and ask him to join as a partner and chief researcher. He was a little disappointed at first, but agreed and said that as two scientists, we needed someone who understood business.”<\/p>\n Shortly afterward, while waiting to pick up his children from preschool, Azaria met Nimrod Gliksman, an entrepreneur who had sold a company and was looking for his next venture.<\/p>\n “When we started talking, I had no idea who he was or what his background was,” Azaria recounts. “I suggested we go to the park with the kids and continue talking because I was simply enjoying the conversation. That’s not something I usually do, since I’m an introvert. Only afterward did he tell me about his background. Nimrod made the first investment in the company and became a founding partner. We chose to farm salmon because it’s the most popular and profitable fish.”<\/p>\n Inland Ocean, founded in 2021, also drew on the expertise Israel has accumulated over decades in water and wastewater treatment. The company partnered with Dagon Aquaculture and Environmental Protection Technologies (EPT), one of Israel’s leading companies in the design of wastewater treatment facilities, which helped translate the technology developed in the laboratory into an industrial facility.<\/p>\n “It was clear to us that we needed to work with local farmers,” Azaria says. “Only 10 to 20 percent of the fish eaten here are locally produced, and Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael stands out as a large, established farm. So we approached them, and they welcomed us. They manage the agricultural side, and we manage the technological side of the facility. Our cooperation is a significant part of the success. They’ve saved the situation several times.”<\/p>\n Why haven’t companies that previously tried to farm salmon in closed, land-based systems succeeded?<\/p>\n “Because the first people to tackle the problem were water engineers,” van Rijn says. “For them, the main goal was to get the water as clean as possible, so they removed everything from it. But you need a balance between bacteria. You don’t want completely clean water, because if a pathogen enters, it can multiply because it has no enemies. We introduced the biological aspect because you have to simulate the fish’s natural environment. We used sludge, which, although kept separate from the ponds where the fish grow, remains part of the system, to reproduce the biological processes that occur in nature.”<\/p>\n “Our system allows nature to do what it has been doing for millions of years,” Azaria says. “Suddenly, we’re seeing fish grow faster, without disease, and we’ve never needed antibiotics, medications or hormones<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Following the success of the pilot facility, the company is already moving ahead with several new projects, including two facilities in Israel, each expected to produce thousands of tons of salmon annually. Its first goal is to supply about 10 percent of Israel’s salmon consumption.<\/p>\n If the startup succeeds, its technology could allow salmon to be farmed in an environmentally friendly way almost anywhere, while drastically reducing water consumption. This, the founders say, could shorten supply chains, reduce the carbon footprint and provide consumers with fresh, healthy and tasty fish raised without antibiotics, hormones or microplastics.<\/p>\n Are you also targeting markets outside Israel?<\/p>\n “The salmon market in the United States is the largest in the world, and the vast majority of the salmon consumed there is imported. In the future, we want to build farms there. We’re now starting to work with two Native American tribes on the East Coast to establish farms on their reservations.”<\/p>\n How did you reach them?<\/p>\n “One of our investors connected us. They’re very interested in developing the reservations and practicing sustainable agriculture, both because nature is very important to them and because they want to provide jobs for people. We’re moving forward with this together with the federal government.”<\/p>\n Snir Azaria. “We realized we had an advantage that no one else in the world had yet achieved.” Credit: Rami Shllush<\/p>\n Snir Azaria. “We realized we had an advantage that no one else in the world had yet achieved.” Credit: Rami Shllush<\/p>\n It is very cold inside the fish facility, which contains four ponds with a total of 8,000 salmon, as well as a separate room housing the biofilter. After the fry hatch, they are transferred to the first growing pond and then moved to larger ponds as they grow. When they reach about 30 grams, they are transferred to a pond where smoltification takes place, the physiological change that prepares them for the transition from freshwater to brackish water.<\/p>\n Above each pond are lighting systems that simulate the length of the day, light intensity and seasons of the North Atlantic, thereby controlling the fish’s development. Once the process is complete, the salmon are transferred to the final growing ponds, where they remain until they reach market weight.<\/p>\n Inside each pond, the movement of the fish creates a centrifugal current that causes their feces to settle on the bottom, like tea leaves in a cup stirred with a spoon. The waste drains into a channel and from there flows to the biofilter in the separate room, developed by the researchers.<\/p>\n The room has a strong, strange odor that the facility’s workers have grown accustomed to. After climbing a ladder, we stood high above the system. On one side was the contaminated water; on the other, clean water<\/a>.<\/p>\n “The fish wastewater arrives here, and it’s another world that simulates the ocean floor, because it’s important for us to let biology do its thing,” Azaria says. “This organic matter is what fish farmers worldwide dump back into nature, while we’ve turned the problem into a solution. Once the water is clean, we pass it through microspheres that encourage bacterial colonization. The bacteria break down the compounds that cause the off-flavor, and then the water returns to the fish ponds.”<\/p>\n In Norway, salmon are raised in cold water. How does that work here? Don’t you need to cool the water, using a lot of energy?<\/p>\n “This is one of the first questions investors ask me, and it also explains why it has been difficult to farm salmon in Israel until now. Our system is a completely closed habitat. It doesn’t constantly draw new water from the environment, so there’s no need to keep cooling new water as it enters. We recycle not only the water but also, in effect, the energy already invested in cooling it, so the energy load is significantly lower.<\/p>\n “We approached an engineering firm that designs industrial air-conditioning systems for large facilities, and they designed a closed-loop system for us that can cool the water year-round, including during the harsh summer months, at a relatively low cost.”<\/p>\n “Each time, the taste improves, and the other criteria remain very good,” Chef Asaf Doktor said. “It’s not quite there yet, but they’re getting close. I believe they’ll succeed, and that would be an enormous ecological, cultural and economic victory.”<\/p>\n What difficulties did you encounter in farming the fish and raising money?<\/p>\n “The transition from academia to business wasn’t easy for me. I’d give presentations to investors, explaining the technology and the science, and I’d see people in front of me who just weren’t interested. One asked me to remind him of my name. Another said, ‘Listen, this is terribly boring.’ Another asked me about my motivation and was very disappointed that my primary concern was the environment, not accumulating capital. These are people accustomed to investing in apps and high-tech. There were also some nerve-wracking incidents at the facility itself.”<\/p>\n What, for example?<\/p>\n![\"\u05de\u05e2\u05d2\u05df](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/66476968.JPG\" "\\"Prof.")
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