Start-up settles in mine - and wants to breed shrimps there

The start-up Aquapurna was only founded in 2020. Now it wants to set up shop in the disused K+S mine and raise sustainable marine animals there.

For a long time, the Sigmundshall mine in Wunstorf near Hanover was entirely dedicated to potash mining. But because the mine, which is run by the fertilizer manufacturer K+S, has now been shut down, new companies or business areas are supposed to settle there. This has now apparently succeeded. The company Aquapurna has rented an area of about 400 square metres on which it wants to set up a research and development centre, as several media report unanimously.

Aquapurna itself has dedicated itself entirely to aquaculture. On its own website, the start-up, which was only founded in 2020, advertises that it is "developing the most advanced method of land-based shrimp farming to provide the world with delicious shrimp while preserving our planet."

Why the company is drawn to a mine, of all places, to do this was not clear at first. In any case, K+S rents out halls and also rooms underground at the site, which was already abandoned in 2018. According to the mine operator, these have the advantages that, on the one hand, they are sealed off from the outside world and, on the other, there is a relatively stable temperature down there. Other start-ups, it is said, could soon settle here.