% Colruyt Group is ready to harvest Belgian mussels from its own sea farm for the third year in a row. The Belgian mussels cultivated using longline will be ready to be harvested from June. The first real Belgian mussels of the season will be available exclusively in the four Cru markets from 5 June and can be tasted in more than 40 hospitality businesses. Solucious, Colruyt Group's food service specialist, will take care of their daily fresh supply. The group expects to offer a volume of 75 tonnes this year. More and more chefs choose to put Belgian mussels on the menu, confirming the Belgian catering industry's interest in this delicacy.
Les moules belges sont arrivées
After a long winter season, they are here again: Colruyt Group's first real Belgian mussels! Once again good news for Belgians, who, with an average consumption of 2.5 kg of mussels per year1 are known as one of the biggest mussel eaters in Europe. For several years, Colruyt Group has been cultivating the common blue mussel (mytilus edulis) in a self-developed sea farm off the Belgian coast. “The rich presence of plankton in the North Sea provides us with a tasty full mussel with a creamy, slightly salty taste, which grows twice as fast as the bottom-culture mussel,’ he says. The hanging culture mussels from our sea farm can therefore be harvested as early as June," says Stijn Van Hoestenberghe, operational manager of Zeeboerderij Westdiep. The team expects to bring 75 tonnes of Belgian mussels ashore this year, compared to 40 tonnes last year. This unique Belgian product will be on sale from 5 June at €13.90/kg at Cru, the indoor fresh food market with pure, quality products and extraordinary flavours in Ghent, Dilbeek, Antwerp and Overijse. From then on, they will also be on the menu of more than 40 catering businesses across Belgium.
More Plus de chefs choisissent les moules belges
The real Belgian mussel is a Colruyt Group initiative and the result of unique craftsmanship. The mussels are cultivated and harvested in the sea farm off the coast of Nieuwpoort, i.e. 100% Belgian. The hanging culture mussels have more meat, a cleaner shell (so less work in the kitchen) and contain no sand. In one and a half years, they grow into nice, full, meaty mussels with a unique flavour. This is confirmed by more and more chefs endorsing this top Belgian product. In 2023, the first mussels were served by top chef Seppe Nobels. Last year, this tasty Belgian delicacy, prepared in classic or special ways, could be savoured in some 20 restaurants. This year, Solucious, Colruyt Group's food service specialist, is delivering Belgian mussels to twice as many restaurants as last year. Belgian mussels are on the menu at more than 40 restaurants.
Stepwise scaling-up of number of lines
In 2022, Colruyt Group started construction of the first phase of “Sea Farm Westdiep” off the Belgian coast. Meanwhile, there are 138 backbones in the demarcated 1km² cultivation zone. Those backbones float just below the water surface and are equipped with mussel ropes in the spring on which the mussel seed can attach and grow into full-fledged mussels. Each year, the sea farm team continues to work on installing additional mussel lines to harvest larger volumes of mussels each year. On 90 of the 138 backbones, the team installed 40-50 U-shaped mussel ropes, accounting for 45,000m of rope on which mussels can grow. "Gradually scaling up the number of mussel lines was our plan from the beginning and it is succeeding, despite the harsh conditions peculiar to the North Sea. The weather conditions make working at sea anything but obvious," Stijn explains. ‘Next year, we aim to install new mussel ropes on the remaining 48 backbones, which will completely fill the current demarcated cultivation zone of 1 km² and complete the first phase of the sea farm’ concludes Stijn.
1 Source: Zeevruchtengids.org, 2016.
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