POLAND
Pustelnia Fish Farm uses innovative methods in the production and sales of carp
New customers for an ancient product Anna and Sebastian PyĂź are pioneering ways to encourage consumers to eat carp all year around rather than just at Christmas.
Anna and Sebastian PyĂź have built a market for carp which they supply around the year.
T
he production of carp in Poland goes back to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when monks used to cultivate the fish. Over the following 500 years many of the large earthen ponds used for the production were established. These ponds are still in use today although they were acquired in the mid-20th century by the state,
which renovated and upgraded the ponds. With the political and economic changes of the 90s the ponds reverted to private ownership often ending in the hands of the workers who had run them under the former regime. Today the fish farms are typically owned by private companies that produce common carp along with small quantities of other
freshwater species for the domestic market.
A sector under steady change Carp farming has evolved significantly over the years as knowledge about the fish has improved and new production technologies have become available. Changes
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in the market, among consumer tastes, and in society at large have also shaped the development of the sector. Among the best exponents of this progress are Anna and Sebastian PyĂź, the owners of Pustelnia Fish Farm, a company with about 400 ha of ponds some 60 km from Lublin in the east of the country. The ponds are divided into seven &VSPl TI
01/12/20 3:48 PM