CROSSING THE POND

AquaBioTech Group is a leading international aquaculture, fisheries and marine consulting, engineering and development company located in Malta, operating globally with clients and projects in over fifty-five countries. Established in 1996, the company has hundreds of international projects in our portfolio and has developed a strong brand and reputation globally. Dayna Camilleri Clarke caught up with Shane Hunter, chief executive officer to find out the secrets to their resounding success.

When trying to comprehend the scope of the work AquaBioTech undertake, it’s immediately apparent they support their clients throughout the project lifecycle, from market research and intelligence, through to project feasibility assessments, project management, technology sourcing and technical support and training. The team at AquaBioTech Group are specialists in their fields and include a large team of researchers who are charged with building our IP pipeline.  

Shane is British born and educated; he studied aquaculture and fisheries biology before relocating to Malta. He set up the business with his wife and a few close friends. Over the years they have built up the local operations to include over 85 personnel recruited from more than twenty-five countries. 

The team have diverse backgrounds, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to any assignment undertaken. Shane states “I enjoy living and working in Malta, and I have found it a great place to develop a business like ours. At the start, many people in government didn’t understand what we were trying to achieve and what our long-term strategy was, but as the business plan developed and matured, things became much easier.”

From inception, did Aqua biotech ever imagine they would be reaching out to so many countries? “We chose to be an international company from day one” states Shane, “We knew that Malta was never going to provide the market we would need to sustain the type of business we wanted to build. We wanted to take our technology and services to the global market. There is a local element to our work, such as marine surveys and environmental assessment work. Still, overall, local business does not even account for one per cent of our global turnover.  

Shane is quick to divulge which global challenges the company are trying to solve and their importance. “Fishing is widely accepted as being at the limit of its sustainable yield, so aquaculture must expand to keep pace with growing global demands. We realised that there was a technology gap forming in the sector which galvanised the rationale for us building our own aquatic research, development and innovation centre here. Over the years, with the quality of work that we have undertaken, our facility has become a highly respected research entity, attracting major corporations to use it for the development of their research requirements.”

One may wonder how technology is linked to sustainability, but for Shane and his team, it’s a natural combination. “For us, these two areas are completely interlinked in every part of our business. As a protein source, fish has one of the lowest environmental impacts of all farmed animals, but there is still much more that we can do to reduce that impact and build more sustainability into the industry”.

He continues “Developing our own intellectual property (IP) in the field of land-based fish farming was a ten-year project that cost millions of euros, and is still ongoing, but we were able to commercialise our offering, and our Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) technology is in high demand on the global market”.

With recent trends turning towards the handling of big data and stepping into the world of AI, AquaBioTech hasn’t left this stone unturned, Shane explains. “We have always focused on monitoring and control systems in our RAS technology packages as the data we receive enables us to learn about the way our packages work in different environments. As that volume of data increases, the ability to be able to mine that data, interpret the information and then act upon it becomes crucial. 

Artificial intelligence is still relatively new in our industry; however, we have recently won an EU funded research project, iFishIENCi, that we are coordinating in this field. Last week, we completed the installation of various underwater cameras used to monitor fish behaviour in our research tanks.”

"We realised that there was a technology gap forming in the sector which galvanised the rationale for us building our own aquatic research, development and innovation centre here"

Their work is pioneering, something which has been recognised by many external entities who are quick to commend Shane and his team. He explains what he feels resound as the secrets to their success. “I think that you have to look at the fantastic team of people I work with every day to see why we are doing well in our industry, from export awards to innovation. These are people that have left their native country and came to live and work in Malta to be part of the vision we have as a company. Aside from the strength in our team, our products and services are heavily in demand in our industry which we developed at a competitive price point. 

What can we expect from AquaBioTech in the future? Shane concludes, “We have some inspiring projects in the pipeline for 2021, including a significant expansion that will see us add another 600m2 of offices, laboratories, and workshops to our facilities in Malta as well as us opening a new office overseas. We are also looking to strengthen our collaboration with partners across the world and attract more young professionals as we see this as a future challenge for our industry. 

Overall, our focus remains the same, but there is much more that we can achieve and as the global demand for seafood increases. We seek to do our part to ensure the sustainability of its production whilst improving our technology beyond the current state-of-the-art.”

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FEATURED IN ISSUE #2

NOV ‘20