Day in the life: Abu Dhabi sturgeon farm manager takes care of his brood

Farming Siberian sturgeon has not put production manager Muhaned Abu Awad off eating fish. Just don't ask him about the chicken farm he once worked at.

Muhaned Abu Awad, production manager of Emirates Aquatech sturgeon farm in Abu Dhabi. Christopher Pike / The National

Muhaned Abu Awad is the production manager for Emirates Aquatech, the world’s largest indoor facility for raising fish. The Siberian sturgeon farm, which is the size of eight football pitches, opened in 2011 and has been producing caviar and sturgeon meat for the past two years. The Jordanian Mr Awad, 41, manages 26 employees across four departments, including quality and aquaculture.

7am

I eat cereal on the go and drive my two eldest kids, aged nine and seven, from our home in Mohammed bin Zayed City to school in Khalifa City. I come back through the traffic to arrive at the aquafarm in Musaffah.

8.10am

I open the office and check emails. In case of emergencies, we have two levels of alarms – one for the managers, and one for the technicians. I get all the emergency SMSs both ways so I know what’s going on even before I’ve left my house. I’ve had phone calls late at night when a pump has not been running. Raising sturgeon is just like having kids, but instead of having two or three, we have 300,000. It’s a big responsibility. You have these really big living creatures and their well-being is related to how you do your work.

9am

I take my walkie-talkie on a tour around the farm. We use three-wheeled bikes to get around the production areas. Staff shifts run from 4.30pm until almost midnight, then from midnight until 8am, so there’s always someone to make sure things are OK. The farm is designed in a nice way, to take care of the fish. The good thing in the UAE is the regulations that make sure things run correctly. Before this, I worked in Jordan for 13 years farming tilapia fish, and I also worked as a production manager on a chicken processing facility – which was a totally different experience. I stopped eating chicken at that point. I like eating fish more these days. Working here hasn’t put me off.

10am

I meet the three heads of departments. Our work here is quite dynamic, we don’t sit around in our offices much – we have our meetings on site where the work is being done, so I’m on my feet a lot. We discuss what needs to be carried out by the end of the day.

11am

We receive an urgent order for caviar from a VIP. Many VIPs in the UAE have a fondness for caviar and they often want it straight away. If it’s between 100 and 200 grams, we can get it assembled in half an hour. The caviar is kept in special mother tins, as this is the way of bulk-storing caviar. Once we get an order, we can open them and put the caviar into small vacuum tins. This process takes time – disinfecting the rooms and tins, doing quality checks, choosing the right labels. Then either the VIP will arrange for his people to pick it up, or our lady from marketing takes it to them. If it’s a big order, a delivery van is arranged.

Midday

I have a drawer in my office full of red apples and I eat one for lunch. I was told when I was young “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” and I think I believed it. I was a bit overweight before – people who come to the UAE often put on weight. So now I eat a healthy diet, at least during the working day.

12.15pm

I do the noon prayer. We have a shared prayer area for anyone to use at the farm, but I prefer praying in my office. I also drink coffee and check emails. We have CCTV cameras showing the farm, so I can see everything on screen.

2pm

We finish a 10kg order of caviar for Japan. This is a trial order, as we have different qualities of caviar, so people want to sample them. Our sturgeon are fed by robotic feeders. When fully grown, they only need feeding their dry feed (consisting of corn, soya, fish meal and fish oils) four times a day, but baby sturgeon need to be fed live artemia shrimp 134 times a day – every 10 minutes.

3pm

As well as caviar, we plan to sell sturgeon leather products in the future. And we sell sturgeon meat, which tastes a bit like chicken. We have a good relationship with many of the hotels. Sometimes a chef will run out of stock so he’ll give us a call. Today, Emirates Palace ask for an order of 20 filleted fish. Our stock are all live so we just take them from the water. The fish are handed to the processing department, who fillet them and add spices if requested.

5pm

I go home and eat whatever my wife is cooking, hopefully mensaf (lamb with rice dish). I spend an hour playing with my two-year-old son, then I might play with my mobile. After my wife has finished helping the older kids with their homework, we’ll sit together and eat some fruit until the kids go to bed at 9pm. Then I watch TV until midnight with my wife.

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