Newsletter March 2023

Substantial progress in production efficiency

In the last six months we have made significant progress in larval growth. We are now at the stage that we may call - according to the biological literature - leptocephalus or willow leaf larva. But as we get closer to the goal - the glass eel - the challenges, the problems we still have to overcome, also become more and more apparent. For example, we now see clearly before us that the main focus must be on increasing survival in the early fa-se of larval development. That is where the greatest gains can be made. Namely, the production of one glass eel, no matter how pioneering, is not enough. We want to establish a glass eel production facility.
We have now calculated the larval survival and survival to commercial production. The conclusion of that calculation is that scaling up to a commercial farm is profitable at a production efficiency of at least 6%, i.e. 6% of the fertilized eggs eventually become glass eels. We believe that 10% is feasible for us. This is considered a very good basis in aquaculture for commercial exploitation. We assume the current kilogram price for glass eels, not the insanely high amounts paid for glass eels on the black market. Our estimates indicate that even with normal prices, commercial glass eel production can be very profitable.
A comparison of the 2022 results with those of 2021, as shown in the table, clearly shows the progress. The figures refer to survival, averaged over all batches of eggs that year. There are also occasional batches that develop poorly (survival 0 at an early stage); these are also included in the average. The table shows that in 2021 we were not yet able to breed larvae of 35 days, whereas now we are already at an average of 5% and 16% has also been achieved. If you look at the maximum numbers (the records) we are already starting to get pretty close to our target in the stages up to leptocephalus, although the through growth to glass eel has not yet been achieved. We face the future with confidence, although the challenges remain great.