American agriculture nutrition company Ralco has announced Texas A&M University has licensed the company’s patent for a shrimp raceway system.
The system, according to shrimp expert Addison Lawrence, can produce 1 million pounds of shrimp per acre of water in a year.
“The technology that has been licensed to Ralco changes the rules of the industry altogether,” said Michael Ziebell, general manager of Ralco’s shrimp division. “We will be able to grow shrimp in a confined environment, with a greater ability to control disease and provide a predictable supply of fresh shrimp. There is nothing better than to be able to change the rules in an industry.”
The company, based in Marshall, Minn., is now building a pilot shrimp research facility at its Balaton, Minn. location, to scale the project up from a laboratory experiment to a working commercial prototype.
The ultimate goal will be for Ralco to provide specifications for land-based production facilities, along with shrimp larvae, feed and processing and marketing of the final product.