Clearwater Seafoods educates the fisherman who supply them, their transporters and their staff in humane handling at Lobster U

A Nova Scotia company, has added a "lobster condo" to the system: a humane holding tank where caught lobsters can live stress-free in happy solitude before being eaten.

Clearwater Seafoods has also developed a "Lobster University" to teach humane lobster-handling practices to its fisherman and staff, as well as a new high-tech, high-pressure killing chamber that serves as a replacement to dumping live lobsters in boiling water.

Last week, Clearwater's cutting-edge practices paid off. Whole Foods Market, a high-end national U.S. grocery chain, named Clearwater its exclusive supplier of lobster meat, in keeping with the grocer's efforts only to sell humanely harvested animal products.

"We handle lobsters differently from the rest of the industry," says Colin MacDonald, CEO of Halifax-based Clearwater. "We employ full-time biologists, who have developed methods to reduce the stress on the animal and handle lobsters in a manner consistent with their fragile nature and their survival."

Although the value of Clearwater's deal with Whole Foods hasn't been made public, MacDonald calls it "a feather in our cap to be recognized" by the U.S. company.

Margaret Wittenberg, a Whole Foods vice-president, said: "Many lobsters are held in storage facilities for several months," adding that it was impossible to "ensure the health and well-being of lobsters outside their natural environment for such a long period of time."

Whole Foods will continue to sell uncooked, frozen lobster meat -- but only that supplied by Clearwater, whose "different handling techniques," the grocer says, "support the natural conditions to help lobsters thrive."

MacDonald says the keys to Clearwater's exclusive deal are its "Lobster U," a school Clearwater's staff and contract fishermen go through to learn the ABCs of lobster handling.

"We employ a lobster university to educate the fishermen who supply us, as well as our transporters and our own staff," he says.

One of the big lessons is that a lonely lobster is a happy lobster. The creatures live solitary lives at sea and don't much like getting dumped in crowded holding tanks on fishing boats or in lobster pounds.

To that end, Clearwater stores its commercial catch in "lobster condos," or what it calls a "biologically sensitive dryland pound," in which the animals are housed in individual saltwater holding cells to minimize their stress and maximize their happiness.

For complete Story by Richard Foot

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