With our EPFC-Core group we could visit Aquapri, the oldest and biggest pikeperch producing company with an indoor recirculating system in Europe.
After 3 hours driving our small delegation of the EPFC-CG arrived and was welcomed with a nice variety of sandwiches by Julia Overton and Torsten Boutrup. Of course, we got also an explanation of the history of Aquapri. Starting as fishermen in 1900 they evolved into producing fish. Today the main production is trout (fresh water and seatrout) and since 2005 they also produce Zander.
The farm we visited was opened in 2016 and makes at its best 400 tons of Zander per year. This fish is sold between 600g and 2 kg, most is sold as whole fish on ice.
After an hour of interesting talk on hatchery management, reproduction, broodstock management, disease prevention,... we got a tour trough the whole facility, no questions were unanswered, each corner was “inspected”. Bottomline all systems have there advantages and disadvantages, and the next farm Aquapri will/want/should build will be even better and more impressive.
For me personally it gave me a positive vibe on pikeperch production in Europe, and that’s all I needed.