A More Comfortable Berth for Lobsters

In Europe, lobster is an expensive delicacy, requiring constant cooling as the live crustaceans make their way from traps off the coast of Nova Scotia to kitchens in London, Paris, or Frankfurt. Until recently, that meant shipping the creatures via air, crammed about 10 to 20 per box filled with ice packs. These days distributors are considering a new mode of transport: a standard-size shipping container called Aquaviva that can carry almost 10,000 live lobsters, each in its own cubbyhole filled with seawater that’s chilled, filtered, and monitored for oxygen. “It’s a more natural environment, and the lobsters are packed separately, so they don’t bite each other, and you don’t see legs falling off,” says Danielle Westerweel, marketing chief of Krijn Verwijs Yerseke, a 136-year-old Dutch seafood monger. “The quality is much better than airfreight.”

The Aquaviva is made by France’s CMA CGM, the world’s third-largest container shipping line. Following four years of development, CMA in April started offering it for transporting lobsters and possibly other live seafood like mussels and oysters. The effort is an example of a trend in which carriers such as CMA, Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, and market leader A.P. Moeller-Maersk are trying to bolster margins with specialized containers designed to move perishable or fragile goods. The companies need to court new customers as an oversupply of vessels has sent freight prices down by two-thirds in the past four years, to about $500 per container shipped from China to Europe—barely enough to cover handling, fuel, and terminal fees. The carriers are looking to expand the use of refrigerated containers and making their boxes more intelligent, allowing them to communicate with port operators, truckers, warehouse managers, and companies whose goods are being shipped. “The industry is badly in need of beefing up the demand side at a time when demand for standard goods is scarcely rising,” says Peter Sand, an analyst at Bimco, a shipping trade association.