October 11, 2021

The Bavarian indoor fishermen

Over the last 20 years, shrimps have gone from being a luxury product to a mass product - and not without dramatic consequences for the environment. The little creatures are sometimes produced under questionable conditions and transported halfway around the world to finally tickle our taste buds. Crusta Nova in the Erding district near Munich shows that things can be done differently.

Anyone who thinks of shrimp as cute crustaceans that happily crawl around on the seabeds of the world is deluded. The global demand for this seafood is many times greater than can be met by wild catches. In addition, fishing with trawl nets is anything but unproblematic for the marine ecosystem. Aquaculture has therefore become established in many countries and has developed into an important economic factor. The world's largest shrimp production takes place in Thailand, but shrimp are also farmed on a large scale in other Asian regions such as China, Indonesia, Vietnam, India and on the South American continent. With all the ecological consequences that have repeatedly led to scandalous headlines for decades and, at least temporarily, seriously spoil the appetite for shrimp.

The hall in which the saltwater shrimp are kept is insulated like a refrigerator. It is only heated in winter when temperatures drop below freezing.

After four months the shrimp are big enough and can be fished.

It is therefore all the more exciting that since 2012 there has been a company in the Munich area that specializes in breeding saltwater shrimp - far away from the tides and the sea coast. Coincidence was the active stepping stone for a successful idea: after studying law, Crusta Nova founder Fabian Riedel met a former school friend again, a prospective food technologist who was breeding crabs in his bedroom in the middle of Munich at the time. Riedel was fascinated, researched the market and discovered the potential for farmed shrimp - aquaculture is considered the fastest growing segment of the global food industry. He considered how his school friend's experience with crabs could be applied to shrimp. The idea took shape and found a home in Langenpreising. Crusta Nova produces the sought-after crustaceans for the catering trade and the end consumer with a volume of around 30 tons per year - according to Riedel, it is the largest indoor shrimp aquaculture facility in Europe - and it does so sustainably and with impressive quality. Another advantage: the saltwater shrimps are delivered to the customer as fresh produce, in contrast to the shrimps normally consumed in Germany, which are mostly imported frozen products due to the long transport routes. The addition of medication and hormones is not an issue at Crusta Nova - there are no pathogens in Europe that the shrimps have to fear, as Fabian Riedel explains to us in conversation. The company buys the larvae from the world market leader in Florida, after which they are raised for around four months until they are fished out and put on the market or can be ordered from the company's own online shop ( www.crustanova.com ).