In a bid to revolutionize fish processing methods and promote sustainability, a pilot study of a prototype fish drum oven was recently carried out. The study used innovative technology to address the limitations of traditional fish smoking techniques while ensuring the preservation of nutritional value and product quality. Based on Participatory Approach Research (PAR), the study was part of the Project ID 57 of the Gendered Design in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) programme being carried out by Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada in Low Medium Income Countries (LMIC) with support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada.

Traditional fish smoking methods have long been employed in Lagos and other coastal regions in Africa, but they often come with significant challenges. Traditional ovens, dryers or kilns do not only consume high volumes of firewood but also make work harder and more time-consuming, produce suboptimal product quality and are associated with many health hazards. Despite the issues that characterize traditional or local fish smoking technologies, most women smokers in the small-scale fisheries value chains are still culturally bound to these outdated techniques. The biases against the uptake, replication and scaling up of modern or improved fish smoking technology can also be traced to lack of innovation in design, construction, and technology transfer among researchers, technologists, and end users.