Alastair O’Rielly, deputy minister of New Foundland and Labrador fisheries and Aquaculture, speak in a meeting packed with seafood buyers and suppliers. He told them that the new technique will revolutionise the province’s live shellfish industry and boost the market. Canada is one of the world’s largest seafood producing countries and has exported more than 670 million metric tons of seafood valued at $3.9 billion last year.
In the Atlantic Canada Seafood Showcase first ever ocean freight system has been launched by Aqualife Logistics and Maersk Line. This new system is very useful for live shellfish industry and is expected to open the European market to live mussels, clams, snow crab and other shellfish from Atlantic Canada. According to Aqualife in this new system live shellfish are shipped in 1500-liter tanks packed in containers, greatly increases the shelf life of the product and reduces the shipping cost by 30 to 80 percent, compared to airfreight.
Lars Nannerup, co-founder of Aqualife in Naerum, Denmark, told that the new system will stimulate the growth of the live shellfish market in Europe. He added that fresh shellfish sales are growing at an annual rate of 8.8 percent while frozen shellfish sales are increasing at an annual rate at only 3.3 percent. He informed that the system is also environmentally friendly and reduces the carbon footprint of transporting live shellfish. Shipping live shellfish by ocean freight is 30 times cleaner then by air freight.
