NaturalShimp, a Texas-based company developing a recirculating aquaculture system for shrimp, has announced it is planning to expand its facility in Texas.
The company announced that it plans to construct a 40,000-square-foot production facility adjacent to one currently under construction in La Coste, Texas. The facility will contain 20 2,000-gallon nursery tanks, 40 20,000-gallon grow out tanks, two 10,000-gallon settling tanks, and one 20,000-gallon harvest tank.
“Doubling the size of our operations at La Coste will provide us the capacity to scale our business to a level we believe will be required to meet the demand the marketplace will have for our product,” NaturalShrimp CFO William Delgado said in a press release. “Our strategy is to aggressively expand throughout the country and become the market leader in fresh, never frozen, naturally grown shrimp, without the use of antibiotics or toxic chemicals.”
The announcement of the expansion comes in the wake of a fire at its facility in La Coste in March. The company later announced in April that it planned to continue its plans after rebuilding.
The new facility, NaturalShrimp said, will essentially be a duplicate of the facility the company is currently rebuilding.
Just before the announcement of a new facility, NaturalShrimp gave an update on a project the company has been funding that aims to eliminate amoebic gill disease (AGD) in Atlantic salmon.
CSIRO Agriculture and Food’s Aquaculture Research Team has completed the first phase of testing a new technology that kills the Neoparamoeba perurans parasite that causes the gill disease. Now, according to NaturalShrimp, CSIRO has been approved to enter the second phase of testing.
NaturalShrimp is funding the research through a partnership with Hydrenesis – a company aiming to commercialize the technology once trials are complete.
“AGD is costing the salmon industry tens of millions of dollars a year and we are eagerly working with CSIRO and NaturalShrimp to complete testing and begin commercializing this technology,” Hydrenesis Chair Bob Watson said in a release.
The investment is part of NaturalShrimp’s overall strategy, according to NaturalShrimp CEO Gerald Easterling.
“We are positioning NaturalShrimp to be the leading provider of technology solutions in the fish farming business and we believe that this AGD technology from Hydrenesis is going to be a game changer for the salmon industry,” he said.
