Immanuel Rasmussen, father of the present owner Børge S. Rasmussen, started on his own as a farrier 1 May 1947, after buying the company he have been working in for some years, at Englandsgade 13 close to Esbjerg harbour. The first years Immanuel was occupied with repairing horse-drawn carriages and horseshoes. He was quite an inventor, and in 1954 by request of fishing skipper Arno Sørensen, he developed the first mechanical unloading machine. The machine was a revolution within unloading of fish, which up to that time was done manually. Around 1955 he moved to the present address and the name IRAS was formed, and for some years up to 1960, Arno Sørensen was his partner. The unloading machine was known both within the borders of Denmark and outside, and for many years it was the foundation stone in the company’s further development. Later came the tip waggon for transport of fish, and in the sixties IRAS made the first automatic scales for weighing of fish, then came mechanical grading and ice dosing machines for fishing vessels, drum washers, mincers and prefabricated model built rectangular silos for storage of fish, which is still considered as a unique IRAS invention.

IRAS achieved another breakthrough in the seventies with the development of pneumatic suction/unloading systems, which rapidly became extremely popular throughout the Scandinavian fishing industry. The success of these systems led to the development of other revolutionary products, e.g. where IRAS introduced the advanced PV-system (Pressure/vacuum), which ensures the most gentle treatment of the fish with emphasis on gentle handling, which was the foundation of export to the whole world.

The IRAS PV-system is offered in many models with capacities from 5 – 500 t/h with pumping distances up to 2 km, and to this date our biggest success.