CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- Recently, news about the mass production of salmon in Xinjiang went viral, and many Chongqing foodies have expressed envy. Actually, there's no need to be greedy. Our mountain city can also produce "sea shrimps". Recently, the first batch of South American white prawns from Dazu, Chongqing have been sold in Freshippo.

By cultivating a closed ecosystem similar to the ocean, the base realizes industrial and large-scale aquaculture of sea shrimps, allowing local people to eat fresh native born seafood.

Shorten the distance from the origin by 1,000 kilometers to make seafood fresher

“Gently! Gently! Be careful not to let it pop out.” Every time customers pick up shrimps, Zhou Juan, a staff of a Freshippo store in Ranjiaba, Chongqing, will be extremely careful because the shrimps in the pool are full of vim and vigour, which will jump out of the water tank at any time.

Zhou Juan introduced that if Chongqing citizens wanted to eat sea shrimps in the past, they could only eat shrimps in a dormant state because these shrimps had gone through long-distance journey of 1,200 kilometers even from the nearest place of origin, Zhanjiang, Guangdong. While nowadays, it only takes one and a half hours to transport the South American white shrimps from the origin Dazu to the store. Their vigorous vitality has brought a lot of “work burden” to Zhou Juan.

“In addition, these seafood produced in Chongqing also obtained a certificate of antibiotics-free aquaculture certified by international authorities.” Li Duosi, product director of Chongqing Freshippo, introduced that the production of these antibiotics-free shrimps is creasing currently, with limited supply of 200 jin per day. Thanks to safety and freshness, these shrimps will be sold out every afternoon. It is expected that the annual production will reach 300,000 jin by next year, covering the markets in Sichuan and Chongqing.

“Building seas” inland through biotechnology

The difficulty in cultivating seafood lies in the water source. Where to get seawater in the mountain city deep inland?

If there is no sea, then we make it ourselves! In the Da'an Agricultural Park, Dazu, Chongqing, there are nearly a hundred shrimp ponds distributed in enclosed plant covering an area of a 2,000 square meter. Shrimps freely swim in the 30 degree "hot spring", with the air filled with the smell of the sea.

“This is the sea that I spent several years building in Chongqing," said Huan Guoxin, the general manager of Chongqing Antibiotics-free Aquatic Products Company. It is easy to manually concoct seawater through the current aquaculture technique. However, it is almost impossible in inland cities to cultivate shrimps only relying on changing the water because the average amount of water changed for one kilogram of shrimps can reach 50 tons.

For this purpose, Huan Guoxin spent 6 years developing the biological flocs technology, by which particulate matters such as feces and residual bait can be effectively removed from aquaculture water by adding microorganisms to artificial seawater, forming a biological cycle, equivalent to building a closed marine ecosystem in the inland.

More importantly, in order to achieve ecological balance, no antibiotics will be added during the aquaculture process. Moreover, the aquaculture "seawater" can be recycled without any emission, which will not cause pollution to the external environment.

It is expected that the production will reach 300.000 jin next year

Li Hong, a researcher at the Chongqing Aquatic Technology Promotion Station, introduced that the difficulty in raise shrimps with biological flocs is how to maintain the dynamic balance of the ecosystem. This technology is mostly used in laboratories, and this is the first example in southwest China that it can be put into large-scale commercial application.

“Each shrimp pond is a independent ecosystem, and in order to maintain ecological balance, it is necessary to control the proportion of microorganisms and metabolites.” With toughness, Huan Guoxin lives in the work shed around the clock every day, monitoring each shrimp pond in real time.

However, Huan Guoxin is not alone. From three years ago when the first batch of shrimps were caught out of the ponds, to today when a stable scale has formed, orders are flowing in. In order to reassure Huan Guoxin in raising shrimps, Freshippo not only provides services such as back-end transportation, packaging, promotion, etc., but also gives him a word that it will buy as much as he can produce!

Huan Guoxin said that the large number of orders not only gave him confidence, but also attracted a lot of capital attention. After obtaining financing this year, it is expected that the production will reach 300,000 jin next year, which will supply more than 30 Freshippo stores in Chengdu and Chongqing. (Translated by Hu Chuanmin, Fathom Language Limited)