From the official press release at the opening of the NIMPL facility by the New Zealand Prime Minister:

A new $23 million mussel processing facility which will help provide the world's largest half-shell production capacity has opened in Tauranga today featuring ground-breaking technology developed right here in New Zealand.

Prime Minister, Hon. John Key officially opened North Island Mussel Processors Limited's (NIMPLS's) new factory which contains the world's first automated mussel opening (AMO) machines.

NIMPL Director Peter Vitasovich says its new state-of-the-art Greenshell^TM mussel processing plant will see export processing capacity increase nearly three-fold thanks to the new AMO technology.

“Our new Tauranga factory houses 28 AMOs that each process up to 3600 mussels per hour — that's more than 1.6 million mussels per 16 hour day.”

NIMPL Chairman Geoff Burgess says, “Our ability to process mussels in such high volumes at a lower cost base will increase New Zealand's competitiveness in overseas markets and help build a sustainable model for the future.”