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Shellfish Hatchery Systems Leading to Promising results from UK Lobster Hatchery

3rd August 2018

Shellfish Hatchery Systems (SHS) innovative hatchery systems for rearing UK and European lobsters at the National Lobster Hatchery (NLH) has the potential to shift gear into a semi-intensive, highly productive industry for the UK and European economies. The NLH project in Padstow and Newlyn, the latter where SHS’s recently installed a complete hatchery solution for rearing the European lobster from egg to juvenile, including its proprietary Aquahive® system could eventually lead to cultured lobsters appearing on the UK seafood market for the first time.

Shellfish Hatchery Systems unique hatchery system supports the local lobster-fishing industry, whereby operators of the hatchery systems which are even designed to be modular and could be placed throughout the UK and European coastlines, concentrates on hatching eggs from gravid female lobsters caught by local fisherman and then rearing them within the safety of SHS’s unique hatchery system, where survival of larval lobsters is maximised during this vulnerable phase, before growing them further as juvenile lobsters in SHS’s Aquahive® system.  The innovative Aquahive® system which houses the juvenile lobsters in a honeycomb, hive-structure, is a highly effective design that evolved from housing large colonies of bees, leading to high juvenile lobster survival, and has a reduced footprint within hatcheries when compared to tray systems.

Currently within Europe, only 5,000 tonnes of lobster are landed annually, which is a small fragment of the global market demand of 50,000 tonnes of frozen and 70,000 tonnes of live lobster a year.  Shellfish Hatchery Systems complete hatchery solution has the ability to assist the UK, European and other lobster producing countries the ability to reduce this gap, through increasing revenue for the fishing sector through aquaculture and releasing larger juvenile lobsters to enhance local capture fisheries.  Shellfish Hatchery Systems prides itself on providing a truly unique system for culturing lobsters that is truly sustainable within its approach for culture of this prized seafood delicacy. 

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