Our key novelty revolves around our adapted approach to lobster out-growth and our key differentiation features: lower production costs and higher product quality combined with new products not available on the market today, high supply volume and year-round supply guarantee, as well as vastly improved sustainability taking pressure of wild stocks. The main novelty features of the solution are summarised below:
1. Enables novel EL products: Wild-caught EL and AL have strict minimum size limits, beyond the point optimal meat quality and, for EL, a ban on selling soft-shell animals. These limitations will not be an issue for our farmed alternative enabling us to launch new and superior products on the market, e.g. plate-size (best meat quality) and softshell options.
2. Comprehensive image capture, processing, monitoring and charting plus control of feeding (amount, frequency) and water parameters (temperature, pH, O2, CO2, salinity etc.): Unlike wild alternatives, our solution’s careful monitoring of animal growth and welfare will allow us to fully control all aspects of the production process and ensure full traceability of the product.
3. Automated operation with robotic handling from entry into the facility to harvest: Not only will the full automation of the production facility give us an unprecedented level of control over the process and product quality but also dramatically reduce labour costs to make land-based EL farming commercially viable for the first time and enable us to launch this new value chain to meet the market pull for high-quality, high-status lobster.
4. Land-based, closed production chain: The general inputs required for either FTS or RAS farming of EL will be minimal. While we will rely on input of wild-caught berried females to our brood stock gene bank, the survival rate in our hatchery (currently >18%) will far surpass survival of wild larvae (estimated <0.01%) making this a small input for a very large gain. In terms of water use, our final concept is flexible in terms of flow-though (FTS), partial reuse or full recirculation (RAS). While RAS enables us to recirculate >90% of our water volume while efficiently cleaning the small amount of effluent, FTS is a simpler way to provide fresh seawater to the lobsters if the seawater is available at 20°C. Fish faeces and waste feed, which are the major pollution sources from mariculture, will be caught in the water treatment system and disposed of in an environmentally friendly way. The use of land-based FTS or RAS will thus result in a truly sustainable product.
