Prawn of a new era at Balfron farm
A dairy farm on the outskirts of Balfron is the site of a new enterprise which is harnessing ground-breaking technology to re-shape Britain’s prawn market.
Up until now, most prawns destined for the country’s dining tables have come frozen from large, commercial operations in the Far East and central America.
However, later this summer the first harvest of King prawns from the New land-based 1500 square metre facility created at the Balfron farm by Great British Prawns Ltd is due to be marketed.
Fourteen people are employed at the production site which, according to the company, will for the first time in the UK see new aquaculture technology and sustainable energy used to produce King prawns in clear and clean water.
A company spokesperson said a new `recirculation aquaculture system’ was being utilised to clean and recycle the majority of the water used in the system every day to provide prawns in a way which doesn’t contaminate the environment.
The farm is the first of its kind in the UK and the Balfron site was chosen because of its proximity to restaurant markets in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
A test facility, created in Fife, was used to trial the Balfron filtration system. Now the company has ambitious plans to expand, providing fresh prawns to restaurants across the UK.
Pacific Whiteleg Shrimp, better known as the King prawn, are normally native to the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
In Balfron, they will be grown in over 300 tonnes of water capable of holding up to a million fresh prawns. Each will grow to reach an average size of 25 each.
Sustainable energy from an anaerobic digester on a neighbouring dairy farm will be used in the production process alongside bio-filters to clean and recycle its waste.
It means heat that would otherwise have been lost is used to produce food.
The spokesperson added: “Constantly improving design will allow future facilities to be virtually waste free and, because of the closed filtration system, won’t require the antibiotics and other medication, chemicals and manual handling used widely in the existing prawn farming industry, resulting in uniquely `clean’, fresh prawns.”
Prawns from Balfron will be available initially to chefs within a two-hour radius of the farm. Other Great British Prawns farms are scheduled to open across the UK shortly.
Chairman and commercial director James McEuen, a former captain in the Scots Guards who has spent last 11 years running vitamin business NutraHealth plc, said: “Most prawns have travelled 6,000 miles to reach a UK consumer but we know that consumers are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of seafood production and to be sustainable, the future of aquaculture really has to be land-based. This farm has the potential to lead a transformation in the way seafood is produced.”
Production at the site is being managed by Abbie Chulin, who has come over from Belize to work there. Belize, the island of the eastern coast of central America has a strong prawn-producing sector. Abbie has spent the last three years as a prawn farm genetic breeding and hatchery manager on the island.