The Â鶹´«Ã½ and Offshore Shellfish Ltd picked up the prestigious Collaboration Award at the 2025 Aquaculture UK Awards.
The award, sponsored by UK Agri-Tech Centre, recognised the 13 years of collaborative research undertaken by the University and Offshore Shellfish on their offshore mussel farm in Lyme Bay, off the coast of Devon.
They have also worked closely with other partners through the
Ropes to Reefs FISP
project that has looked over the past three years at the broader ecosystem benefits of shellfish farming and the spillover effect into the local fisheries sector.
The work has demonstrated that offshore mussel farms could have wider environmental benefits, with mussels grown on the farm’s ropes helping to reintroduce shellfish populations on the seabed that had been lost as a result of bottom-towed fishing.
The farm has also yielded benefits for other marine species with, for example, the number of Atlantic horse mackerel (Trachur