The intention

Appie and son Klaas Kant wanted to develop a peeling machine for North Sea shrimps with a yield that is as high or even higher than peeling with human hands..

Currently, most North Sea shrimps are peeled manually in Morocco. The peeling machine could, among other things, help to make transport and the addition of preservatives unnecessary.

The approach

Developers Appie and son side worked 13 year on the device. Year after year, prototype after prototype followed.

But never did the machines peel as well as human hands. “The yield of manual peeling is around the 32 percent. That of the machines always fluctuated around the 27 percent.", says Klaas Kant. For a kilo of peeled weight, more than half a kilo of extra unpeeled shrimp was therefore needed.

Klaas Kant came up with the trick to get the shrimp out of his jacket 1994. “Suddenly I had it: the shrimp must be squeezed out of its jacket, sounds simple, but so are paper clips and someone had to come up with them at some point”.

The result

However, his discovery did not bring immediate success. Because the expensive devices never achieved the desired return; there was nothing to gain. In 2001 he even went bankrupt. While Klaas went to work elsewhere, Father Appie continued working on the machine. Suddenly he was there: a machine with an efficiency of around 32 percent and low water consumption. The magical limit was reached.

Mr Kant, who have a patent on their machine, deliver the devices exclusively to shrimp peel company Heiploeg.