Winner of the WPO WorldStar Sustainable Packaging Award 2009, Promens and Aqualife’s shellfish tank keeps taking home international prizes.
The Aqualife shellfish tank bridges distances between the fishing ground and markets worldwide. The significance of this unique product has definitely been noticed. The Aqualife tank can now add winner of the WPO WorldStar Sustainable Packing Award 2009 to the impressive list of awards.
Together with Aqualife Logistics A/S, rotational moulder Promens Material Handling Products has developed and produced the Aqualife shell fish tank, which transports up to 700k of living shellfish such as crab and lobster for up to two months.
Director of sales and marketing Wim Henk Stoppkotte, of Promens, said: “Aqualife came to us with the idea and the biological know-how and asked if we could come up with a product that would do the job.”
The international recognition began when the shellfish tank won the Nordic Scanstar innovative packaging award 2008 and took silver in the Dutch Innovation Awards. These prominent awards paved the way to the international WPO WorldStar competition.
Besides receiving the WPO WorldStar 2008 award, a panel of expert WPO judges further nominated the Aqualife tank in the category of “best-of-the-best” President’s Award, which now has resulted in the winning entry of the prestigious WPO WorldStar Sustainable Packaging Award 2009.
Ahead of the special sustainability prize the World Packaging Organisation announces that sustainability continues to be a major global initiative and the packaging industry and all the stakeholders are continually working towards achieving success in the social, environmental and commercial areas of the initiative.
Features like ease of handling, recyclability, reduction of carbon footprint, preservation of contents and ingenuity of construction have been included in the consideration.
Fresh shellfish for dinner worldwide
The Aqualife shellfish tank keeps shellfish alive up to two months. Enough time to be shipped by ocean freight with huge environmental benefits and reduced shipping costs. Fresh shellfish has to be kept alive until hours before serving.
The Aqualife shell fish tank incorporates an innovative system with integrated filters, water circulation, temperature control and air diffusers. This makes it a unique system for intercontinental transport of fresh shellfish over sea and land.
Closing the logistical gap
Until now, only luxury foods such as lobsters and crabs have been cost-efficient to air freight over longer distances. Today the price gap between fresh and frozen seafood is up to 500%. With the Aqualife tank this gap can almost be closed due to the lower freight rate and the fact that the system keeps the shellfish alive in their own environment right up until the moment of consumption.
Wim Henk Stoppkotte said: “Shipping live shellfish by ocean freight rather than airfreight reduces costs of up to 70% and the CO2 emission is 30 times less than with air freight. Besides the obvious benefits regarding increased animal welfare and hazard management within the Aqualife system, we are proud to say that we have participated in creating this product which provides the seafood industry with a global reach in an unbroken supply chain.”