Our Client "Neue Meere" in the Press

Tarek Hermes would never have dreamed of becoming a shrimp farmer. The nature fan studied agricultural sciences so that one day he could sit on a tractor all day or run around in the forest. Now the 37-year-old scurries around up to 70 hours a week in his aquaculture facility on the industrial estate of his home town of Gronau near Hildesheim. In six tanks on two floors, around 700,000 white tiger shrimps cavort from the larval stage to adult animals. Far away from the coast, inland in Lower Saxony, Hermes wants to produce healthy shrimps and focuses on short distances and sustainability.

New Seas is the name of his enterprise, which received a total of around 1.04 million euros in EU, federal and state funding. In mid-December, the farm shop was opened near the B3 about 40 kilometres south of Hanover, and recently the freshly caught shrimp can also be ordered online. The demand is enormous, says partner Ludwig von Brockhausen. People are willing to pay higher prices for high-quality food. At Neue Meere, 250 grams - about ten prawns - cost 20 euros, a whole kilo can be had for 69 euros.

Perhaps customers want to bring that holiday feeling into their corona-clouded everyday lives with grilled shrimp. Other producers in Germany are also profiting from this. "We have 40 percent more turnover in the corona year than before," reports Bert Wecker, managing director of Förde Garnelen, based in Strande near Kiel. Before the pandemic, caterers had bought almost half of the crustaceans. In his estimation, more people are turning to regional foods during the crisis.

This is overexploitation of nature

It took Tarek Hermes about ten years to turn his idea of a shrimp farm in Germany into reality. The trigger was a TV report about shrimp farms in Asia that he saw in his student digs. The industry threatens mangrove forests there, and antibiotics are used in farming. "This is overexploitation of nature that takes place there to cover the European market," criticises the shrimp farmer. In his recirculation system, one million litres of water are constantly in motion, there is a biological sewage treatment plant, and the energy comes from his own combined heat and power plant. According to Hermes, only about 10,000 to 15,000 litres have to be replaced by fresh water every day.

Currently, more than 50,000 tonnes of shrimp are still imported into Germany every year. According to Wecker, who is also vice-president of the German Aquaculture Association, German companies can currently produce about 100 tonnes of shrimp per year.

"The market gap is there"

They also include HanseGarnelen with headquarters in Hamburg and a production facility in Grevesmühlen (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), CaraRoyal in Grevesmühlen as well as Landgarnele in Niedenstein in northern Hesse. In Bavaria, Crusta Nova (Langenpreising) and Vitashrimp (Eurasburg) produce the delicacy. Some producers were sold out over the Christmas period. The company Suburban Seafood from Nebelschütz in Saxony has specialised in breeding larvae so that they no longer have to be flown in on such a large scale.

Scientists also see potential for shrimp farming in Germany. "It works if you keep an eye on production costs and also sell the shrimp for the right amount of money," says Matthew Slater, who heads the aquaculture research group at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven.

The fish expert of the environmental organisation WWF Germany, Philipp Kanstinger, also sees future opportunities: "The market gap is there, large shrimps are otherwise only available frozen in Germany." Those who cannot afford shrimps from Germany can look in the WWF's shopping guide for fish and marine animals to find out which products in the food market protect the seas and stocks as much as possible and which organic and environmental seals promise quality standards.