Bjørn Aspøy comes from a Norwegian family of fish farmers and aqua-culturists and grew up working in the family business of salmon and trout farming. To follow the trends and developments in a rapidly growing industry, the family always came up with innovative solutions and new ideas. In 1997 Bjørn and his wife Alise set out to farm mussels and invested in traditional long-lines for a production of about 100 ton.

They were in for a lot of trouble. First, they got a very high settlement, which weighed the lines and made them difficult to handle. After that they got an invasion of starfish and when manually howling the overly heavy lines up to remove the starfish; their full future harvest of mussels released back into the sea.

During the autumn and winter season of 1999 the couple spent thinking of new solutions and designs for farming and harvesting mussels. When spring came in 2000 they tested 44 SmartUnits (at the time designed to harvest 500 ton) in the fjords of Stavanger, Norway and later that year they designed and built the harvesting prototype that became so successful it is still in use today.

Bjørn and Alise are now fully dedicated to the development of Smart Farms for the farming and harvesting of mussels. They produce custom designed systems that cater for specific bi-valve species and location variations, such as currents, tides and ice.