Research and Transfer Centre

Ifremer: Lorient station

Ifremer’s Lorient station hosts around thirty researchers, technicians, observers and administrators working exclusively in the fishing field, and based in the Sciences and Fishing Technology unit. Ifremer Lorient is administratively attached to Centre Ifremer de Bretagne, located in Brest.

Ifremer set up its base in Lorient in 1973, near to one of the largest fishing ports in France. A grouping of expertise in research and development, training and transfer in the fishing field has grown up naturally around the fishing port. It brings together Ifremer, IDmer, the Institut Maritime de Prevention, the Centre de Formation Maritime François Toullec, the Maison de la Mer – Espace des Sciences. This synergy of expertise within a large-scale socio-economic fabric was at the origin of the creation of a ‘fishing cluster” in Lorient.

Research fields

The scientists at the station are working in two fields: fishing biology and fishing technology

Institut technique de développement des produits de la mer: Id Mer

Grassroots player providing assistance and guidance for companies and founder member of ACT FOOD, federation of Breton technical centres, the association IDMER aims to facilitate the growth of marine biotechnologies and the food industry through its activities of:

• maturation of applied scientific research,
• technical development,
• industrial transfer for the seafood products sector.

IDMER, offers all its expertise and skills to assist companies and project sponsors so as to guide them in the process of innovation and creation of development opportunities.

Closely attuned to market developments since its creation, IDMER anticipates the requirements of companies for the valorisation and processing of seafood products and seafood co-products to take up the challenges of tomorrow. The technical centre contributes to develop and formulate the ingredients and the products, to create the innovative technologies and to industrialise the processes in its pilot plant, adopting a quality management and continuous improvement approach.

Thanks to these pilot tools from the laboratory stage to the pre-industrial stage, IDMER ensures the scaling up of the developments up to their technical and economic feasibility by the proof of concept and the test market