The UK Sustainable King Prawn Project

Demonstrator

What is it?

Our King Prawn Commerical Demonstrator grew commercial scale batches of warm-water king prawns in a series of indoor RAS tanks. Batches of Post-Larvae (PLs) prawns began in the nursery tank and progressed to the three main growing tanks, before being harvested monthly and sold commercially through Eden Valley Prawns. The relatively small scale of our Demonstrator facility was designed to show the art of the possible. Future adopters of this technology would be able to invest to scale up the operation.

Hosted by project partner RASTECH Ltd, at their Guardbridge R&D site (located near St Andrews, Scotland), the RASTECH-designed polytunnel building and indoor RAS was planned with as much embedded circularity as possible. The whole system aimed to minimise input costs (not least relating to energy) and maximise potential incomes streams, including through the commercialisation and utilisation of wastes.

Dr Andrew Whiston (RASTECH CEO) and his team also hosted our Postdoctoral Researcher, Dr Rajesh Manchi. Rajesh supported the running of the demonstrator and carried out a series of R&D experiments. He brought a wealth of expertise to our project from his role as RAS scientist at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Directorate of Coldwater Fisheries Research) in India.

The illustration ‘The King Prawn Demonstrator Explained‘ describes the recirculating system, highlighting its key compenent parts and circular features.

Take a virtual video tour

Watch these videos on our YouTube channel @UKSustainableKingPrawnProject

Learn about the production process

These infographic posters to learn all about the Demonstrator, how it works, the prawn growing process, its circularity and more (scroll left and right to view).

Learn about the prawns

Learn about the system’s circularity, energy efficiency and scale-up potential

Thank you!

We would like to say a huge thank you to MSc Science Communication graduates Abbie Bramwell and Natalie Bridge and artist Jonny Glover for their work developing the suite of interpretation materials, also supported by the RASTECH team, which help showcase the Demonstrator’s potential.