How the second generation owner of a spicy crab restaurant turned to soft shell crab farming with the help of AI technology
- In 2021, Liu co-founded the AI Farming Company with partners Hao Xiaotian and Legislative Council member Johnny Ng Kit-chong
- The software also monitors important statistics like death rate, time to moult, and other health attributes of the crabs
Like many of his peers, Liu Wai-man, the second generation owner of Hee Kee Fried Crab, one of Hong Kong’s most popular seafood restaurants for tourists, struggled through the 2019 social unrest and three years of Covid-19 controls.
After closing two of his three restaurants, leaving the 57 year-old flagship eatery in Causeway Bay open for business, Liu believes the business model for operating a crab cuisine restaurant “is not sustainable”. A surge in supply costs has been a double whammy.
So he switched gears. In 2021, he co-founded the AI Farming Company (Hong Kong) with partners Hao Xiaotian and Legislative Council member Johnny Ng Kit-chong, aiming to use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to provide indoor farming solutions to nurture soft shell crabs.
In the same year, the company joined the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks’ incubation programme.
“Soft shell crab is a commonly seen ingredient used in Chinese, Japanese cuisines, and the co-fusion menu required in many premium restaurants. Unfortunately, the productivity of the soft shell crab industry is very low due to a low survival rate in the raising process,” said Liu in an interview with the South China Morning Post.
Soft shell crabs are crabs that are going through the process of moulting, when they shed and exit their old shell. “They are soft for about four hours. Then their shell starts to turn hard again,” said Liu.