“If you can’t beat them, make them friends” said Julius Caesar. It’s a proverb that with blue crabs could be declined like this: “If you can’t extinguish them, eat them!”. It seems impossible to eliminate this alien and infesting species that devours Italian mussels, clams and oysters farms, but making them the subject of capture, processing and sale for food purposes would transform a problem into a resource. 5 girls set themselves this goal who founded Blueat in Rimini, a company born small but multinational right from the start, with an export market in the United States and awards won in Chicago, Canada and Iceland, also thanks to the support from Gea – Luigi Consiglio’s management consultants.
The new female entrepreneurs were not caught unprepared by the emergency that exploded this summer. One of them, a marine biologist by profession, had already noticed the problem a couple of years ago. “I was participating in a research project on a sailing boat for a non-profit organization along the Italian coasts” Carlotta Santolini, now 27, tells La Stampa, “and speaking with the fishermen I discovered that this problem was arising. I discussed it with a friend and we decided to create a startup to try to solve it”. But how, so, said and done? “Well yeah, we haven’t been thinking about it. When a question is addressed scientifically, monitoring is carried out, but what happens after the monitoring? We had promised the fishermen of Policoro, in Basilicata, to help them, so we founded a company”.
Speaking of “us” Carlotta refers to her partners Giulia Ricci (25 years old) who takes care of the business part, Matilda Banchetti (25) who follows the supply chain and logistics, Ilaria Cappuccini (27) specialist in communication, recipes and show cooking for promote the product, and Alice Pari (37) who is responsible for public relations and follows the legislative aspects, in particular the possibility of accessing European funds (“we have already passed a first selection”).
Blueat’s business consists of this: the company undertakes to buy at a fixed price (note this fundamental detail) all the blue crabs that are delivered to it (another crucial factor), then the raw material is sent to a processing plant from Mestre (not owned by Blueat) which shells crabs, transforms them into pulp and cans them; finally Blueat takes care of transport and distribution in Italy and abroad, that is (for now) above all in America. Fishermen are obliged to follow a precise protocol: they can only fish for blue crab using “pots”, which are special traps (excluding other methods, such as trawling) and they must treat, store and deliver them in the established manner.
The five girls have no intention of limiting themselves to Italy; In these days Carlotta is making agreements with fishermen also in Albania and Croatia.
The processing capacity of the Mestre plant is 15 tons of blue crab per day; Carlotta explains that “we have reached 5 tons, but in the last few days an unexpected difficulty has arisen: deliveries have decreased, because since the government has allocated 2.9 million for the disposal of crabs as waste material, many fishermen prefer throw it away like this and get the indemnity.” But how, then, do public contributions take away the market from you? And what can be done? “I don’t know – replies Calotta – I spoke on the phone with the minister Francesco Lollobrigida”. With what result? “He too said he was surprised by the problem and guaranteed me that he will move in some way”.