HCOB facilitates building of the first sustainable shrimp aquafarm in Hamburg

• Bank is the exclusive adviser on capital raise
• HanseGarnelen AG’s plant to be set up in the port

Hamburg, May 23, 2019 - Hamburg Commercial Bank’s M&A team has successfully and exclusively advised the Colossal Fish GmbH project company on raising capital for the first sustainable shrimp aquafarm in Hamburg: As soon as this summer, HanseGarnelen AG will start building its plant in the Port of Hamburg on a site opposite the Elbphilharmonie concert venue.

“We are proud that we can now realise this ‘green’ and trail-blazing landmark project for Hamburg,” said Klaus-Peter Danes, Supervisory Board chairman and co-founder of HanseGarnelen AG. “New and innovative businesses exist not only in the technology sector. With its business model, HanseGarnelen AG is a real pioneer in the food industry and the region,” said Karsten Maschler, Head of M&A at Hamburg Commercial Bank. To drive forward this project also described as the ‘Hamburg model’ – Europe’s first urban, organic seafood protein production in the middle of a major city using CO2-neutral energy and residual heat – Burkhard F.W. Hormann, Director of HanseGarnelen AG, says in his own words that he “tackled this like a start-up to bring private and institutional investors on board with the help of HCOB.” Hormann is a member of the German-Brazilian working initiative Agribusiness and Innovation (AI) (Initiative for Collaboration in Agriculture and Innovation), where he is a stakeholder in aquaculture. In this role, he will in a few days’ time be guest speaker at the ‘Green Rio 2019’ international bioeconomy conference in Rio de Janeiro to present the HanseGarnelen model. The German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) is supporting Hormann in his project.

Shrimps are on a worldwide uptrend. The German Association for Aquaculture says Germany alone imports about 40,000 tons per year. Most of these goods come from overseas, where there has so far been little sustainable production for the mass market – meaning the goods are sold as frozen product that was previously water-glazed and frozen before the consumer finally defrosts it again. For his ‘Hamburg model’, Burkhard F.W. Hormann is planning to collaborate with businesses that supply genetically impeccable shrimp larvae of the highest quality.

In the Port of Hamburg, these larvae will then mature into premium shrimps in a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS). This involves water being purified in an integrated water treatment system and then fed back into the holding tanks. “In this sensitive project, water quality is the greatest good; production thereby manages entirely without adding antibiotics,” Hormann said. The operation is furthermore completely CO2-neutral; residual heat from industry is used to heat the water in the tanks to a tropical 28 to 30 degrees Celsius. Another advantage is that the system is modularly expandable at any time, meaning that an increase in output is feasible easily and quickly. Hormann expects this shrimp production in Hamburg to yield 60 to 70 tons per year and the buyers to be mainly in the high-end restaurant trade. This product belongs in the ultra-fresh category of goods and will literally reach the plate on the day of harvest.