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Humane stunning of shrimp with semi-dry electrical stunners
Mårten Jørgensen at the booth of Optimar AS during the Global Shrimp Forum. The team brought with them the electric stunner for shrimp.
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orway based Optimar AS is a seafood technology company with leading innovations on fish handling and processing for aquaculture and fisheries. During the Global Shrimp Forum, held from September 5-7 in Utrecht, The Netherlands, Mårten Jørgensen, Sales Manager discussed the humane stunning of shrimp, other crustaceans and farmed/wild fish species including yellowtail kingfish, tilapia, salmon, trout, European seabass and seabream, lobster, crab, langoustine etc using its electrical stunner. “We developed the new electrical stunner in 2005 and commercialization began in 2007. Making any species unconscious in 0.5 second, we have sold more than 700 stunners around the world. It is not only for fish farming but also included in these numbers are 140 stunners for fishing fleets.” The focus on farmed shrimp only started a few years ago when Optimar began a cooperation with some large supermarket chains, Tesco and Marks and Spencer. The cooperation is still ongoing, and the Optimar shrimp El-stunners are now being used by shrimp farmers in Honduras, Ecuador, Vietnam, and other countries farming shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei and Penaeus monodon. Jørgensen said that they are also working with different NGOs to supply stunners to shrimp farms around the world. The Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP) buys shrimp stunners from Optimar and distributes these amongst shrimp farmers for free. In January 2023, SWP and Optimar signed an MoU to collaborate to promote more humane slaughter practices for shrimp. Both parties recognise the need to minimise the suffering of shrimp in the farming industry and commit to doing so. For farmed shrimp, in general, it is estimated that around 400 billion individuals are killed each year. The most widely used method of slaughter for shrimp is
January/February 2024 AQUA Culture Asia Pacific
thermal shock through immersion in an ice water slurry. Unfortunately, there are growing concerns that immersion in ice may not adequately stun decapods during slaughter with this process and may even be detrimental to their welfare. Andrés Jiménez Zorrilla, SWP co-founder and CEO has acquired Optimar’s electrical stunner which he will use at MERSeafood, a shrimp producer in the Honduras which supplies large global buyers. In terms of pricing, Jørgensen said that it depends on the capacity, but at this forum, Optimar was offering a special price such as the one which can process 5 tonnes/shrimp per hour which is a common capacity for most farms. The mode of action is to have this at the farm on a truck and connected to a generator. This 5 tonnes capacity stunner uses 6-7 kWh and travels from pond to pond. The live shrimp harvest is pumped into the stunner. Alternatively, the farmer harvests the shrimp in baskets or using braille nets. The live shrimps are made unconscious and kept in slurry ice. “This is a human way to render any crustacean or fish unconscious safely and, in a stress, free manner,” said Jørgensen. The per hour capacity of these electric stunners dedicated to shrimp and crustaceans are graded into 1-5 tonnes, 5-10 tonnes and 10 tonnes or more. In the case of fish, the per hour capacity ranges from one to 25 tonnes. Optimar says that it is the world leader with these electric stunners which have been scientifically verified and in compliance with European and Norwegian standards. Optimar expects to be back in the next Global Shrimp Forum 2024 (September 3-5) in Utrecht and present their latest version of their Semi-dry Electric Stunner for shrimp. www.optimar.no