Lobsters return to the ocean

A needed alternative

The need for an ocean-based shipping alternative for shellfish came into stark relief when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in April 2010, closing most of the airspace in Northern Europe and grounding hundreds of flights. The eruption left fresh food shippers all over the world scrambling to find alternative ways to get their extremely time-sensitive cargo to market.

Clearwater Seafoods, one of the largest seafood processors on the Atlantic coast, estimated that about 10,000 pounds of lobster were stranded by the eruption. If it had occurred a few weeks later, at the height of lobster season, the losses could have been much worse.

In general, most in Atlantic Canada’s lobster industry were frustrated by their lack of shipping options. For Aqualife’s Neal, who was preparing to launch the container service, the eruption was something of a blessing because it forced many producers to review their contingency plans. “Thank goodness for that volcano,” he says with a laugh.

Currently, Aqualife is packing its lobster containers at a fish plant located about an hour outside of Halifax. The containers are then transported to the Port of Halifax, where Maersk vessels pick them up for the trans-Atlantic journey.

Aqualife has already built a receiving facility in the Netherlands, which it calls an Aquaport. Now it has its eyes set on Halifax.

“Our next step is to build a facility here, which we hope to have operational by November 1,” Neal says. The Halifax Aquaport will consolidate inbound shipments from shellfish producers. “That will enable us to step up our production, because working in this facility is not ideal,” he adds. “We can do a lot more from a properly built facility.”

Shaina Luck is a freelance writer based in Halifax, Nova Scotia.