AQUACULTURED KINGFISH:

Dr. Andreas Mäck is quite certain: aquacultures in land-based recirculating systems are among the fish farming methods of the future. However, the managing director of Fresh Völklingen GmbH from Saarland is also convinced that the economic success of this breeding method requires special conceptual and technical efforts. Rupert Baur, who has been breeding white tiger shrimp in a recirculating system at his company HanseGarnelen in Grevesmühlen (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) since 2020 and is now setting up a second operation in Glückstadt (Schleswig-Holstein) that also operates sustainably, takes a similar view.

SUSTAINABLE FISH PRODUCTS ARE POPULAR WITH CUSTOMERS

Fish farm products from sustainably operated recirculating systems are very popular with both commercial and private buyers, Mäck knows from his own experience: “Customers are aware of the benefits for animal welfare, for the quality of the products and for the environment.” Equipped with the right water treatment and filtration technology, such systems manage with an extremely low fresh water requirement. The animals bred in the closed and covered systems are free of introduced parasites and diseases: “No addition of antibiotics or other agents is required,” explains Mäck.

RECIRCULATION PLANTS: A BUSINESS CHALLENGE – STILL

How the advantages of sustainable recirculating systems and pond farms can be exploited in everyday operations and how the products can be successfully marketed are among the key aquaculture topics discussed at the forum of fish international, the only fish trade fair in Germany. As convinced as Mäck is of the long-term success of closed-loop plants, however, he is also aware of the challenges that still need to be overcome: “In terms of business management, there are currently too few examples of successful plants.” The recirculation operation and the technology required for it cause high operating costs, which is one of the biggest economic problems with recirculation plants.

For his company, Mäck is relying on a concept that could be the way out: At the facility in Saarland, he breeds yellowtail kingfish, which are otherwise mostly imported as frozen wild catch from waters south of the equator. “Our product comes to the customer fresh and in top quality, so we can achieve higher prices than for mass-produced or frozen goods,” says Mäck.

SHRIMP REGIONALLY FARMED

As founder and owner of HanseGarnelen, Rupert Baur follows similar sustainability principles in shrimp farming as Mäck. Baur already played out a special advantage in his first circulation plant in Grevesmühlen: The graduate mechanical engineer developed the circulation system for his breeding operation himself. “The plant’s water is not moved by electric pumps, but by a blower,” Baur explains. The recirculating system water, specially mixed from clean water and seawater minerals, is biologically and mechanically purified by a three-stage filter, also developed in-house. Like Fresh Völklingen, HanseGarnelen does not use antibiotics or other additives. This is even excluded per se, because it would also destroy the biology of the water treatment.

For the new plant project in Glückstadt, Schleswig-Holstein, Baur has further expanded its sustainability concept already successfully applied in Grevesmühlen. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, he uses waste heat from a neighboring plant to heat the hall in which the recirculating unit operates. In Glückstadt, it will cover the energy requirements of the circulation system from the warm production water of a neighboring paper mill. “This is doubly sustainable, because otherwise this hot water would first have to be cooled using additional energy and would still have heated up the environment or the Elbe River unused,” explains the company boss.

In their fields, both Fresh Völklingen and HanseGarnelen are thus pioneers of a future-oriented development in the fish industry. The two entrepreneurs are convinced: without land-based recirculating systems, the protein needs of the growing world population cannot be met in the long term.