Today, the majority of shrimp are farmed at least one container shipment away from their final market destination. This requires time and money and gener¬ates many “food miles” between the producer and the consumer. On top of that, shrimp is shipped frozen, for obvious reasons, although no one will deny that fresh shrimp tastes better than its frozen counterpart. How can we get some of these tropical shrimp species, so loved in Europe and the U.S., to the markets fresh rather than frozen? Will innovation and developments on the technical side of farming bring shrimp farming closer to the consumer?
Europe and the U.S., while being very important markets for shrimp, lack the favorable conditions for farming shrimp that can be found in Asia and South America. Cold winters, little space to develop ponds and high labor costs make it seem impossible to develop a commercially viable business case for shrimp farming in Europe and the US. However, the development of a so-called indoor recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) could change this perspective.
Benefits
Farming shrimp in a RAS undoubtedly has its benefits for traceability, food safety and environmental impact, which is increasingly important to consumers in Europe and the U.S. A significant advantage is that by producing shrimp locally, the desire of consumers to eat shrimp fresh as opposed to frozen can be met.
Next to this, RAS farms would have the opportunity to farm a more diverse range of shrimp instead of only the Pacific white shrimp (L. vannamei). Where black tiger shrimp (P. monodon) might be a good option, the Japanese tiger prawn (P. Japonicus) could be a species with even more potential: It will reduce the need to compete on price and product with frozen Pacific white shrimp, opening the possibility for market diversity.
Failed attempts
Over the years, there have been multiple attempts to grow shrimp in RAS. Their commercial success rates, however, have been low. As the investment costs of RAS farms are very high, premium prices and a stable output are needed to sustain a business case. With survival rates not exceeding 40 percent, and a growth time of 160-180 days for a 20 gram shrimp (as opposed to 60-70 days in pond systems), this is, however, difficult to achieve.
Knowledge gaps in the RAS farming of shrimp are the main reason for this. While most RAS farms have made progress through trial and error, there is no standardized RAS system, nor are there universally accepted “best practices” as there are in the salmon industry.
Compounding this issue is the lack of availability of proper broodstock and post-larvae in Europe, as importing from Asia is currently not permitted. Importing broodstock and post-larvae from the U.S. is a possibility, but due to the hurricanes that struck the U.S. in 2017, the availability is scarce. They also don’t attain the same performance level as their Asian counterparts, which makes it difficult to reach the required stable output. The current transit times of post-larvae are also too long, compromising the quality of the shrimp and increasing the difficulty of successfully farming shrimp in Europe.
According to ShrimpTails sources, a giant leap can be taken if broodstock imports from the Asian region are permitted. However, as the Asian region is far from being declared “disease-free” according to European standards, this is not likely to happen in the near future. Genetics companies in Europe and the U.S. that now focus on and invest in shrimp genetics could actually provide the resources needed in due time.
Unfortunately, this will not solve the entire problem: Hatcheries and nurseries are still needed for post-larvae and they require a capital investment. Currently, there is no market demand for post-larvae as there are no farms, making a “stand-alone” hatchery operation hardly viable. One option is to develop a RAS shrimp farm that includes a hatchery, but this will substantially increase the need for knowledge and capital.
Successful pioneers
Despite the above-mentioned obstacles and challenges, a few farms in Europe are on their way to successfully producing shrimp. After a period of trial-and-error, Mere Shrimp Farms in Latvia feels confident enough to scale up from small-scale to commercial shrimp farming.
Mere Shrimp Farms founder Gints Dzelme informed ShrimpTails that the company is now building an 80-ton Pacific white shrimp farm in Ukraine. Mere Shrimp Farms started small-scale shrimp farming in 2014, producing 300 kilograms of shrimp annually.
At that time, the production price was EUR 30.00 (USD 34.17) per kilogram. While this seems like a lot, it was not their goal to produce cheap shrimp. Mere Shrimp Farms en-tered into this endeavor to learn how to farm shrimp in a RAS, starting with low capital investment but expecting a steep learning curve. Despite the relatively high price, the shrimp was sold alive, locally, and without any hassle.
Dzelme expects his farm to one day be capable of producing shrimp with a production cost of EUR 6.00 to 8.00 (USD 6.83 to 9.11) per kilogram. Moving forward, he aims to develop a standard in RAS shrimp farming that makes it possible to farm shrimp much closer to the areas where market demand is highest.
The next step for Mere Shrimp Farms is to develop the hatchery phase of shrimp farming, which is necessary to provide good input into the farms. As the farm is located in Ukraine, a non-E.U. country, they can avoid E.U. legislation and import broodstock much more easily.
With an annual production volume of 30 tons, German shrimp farm CrustaNova seems to be the first established company to start breaking the pattern of unsuccessful RAS shrimp farms. Even though CrustaNova is able to obtain post-larvae from a small hatchery in Italy, it still needs to ask a price of more than EUR 80.00 (USD 91.13) per kilogram of shrimp to sustain its business case.
Market potential
While innovation and much-needed knowledge are being developed, it is still unlikely that RAS farming will outcompete the massive volumes of imported shrimp any time soon. As the capital investments needed to develop and build these systems are high, the guaranteed return on investments has to be commercially proven. While shrimp may fetch premium prices in the market, a stable output is still difficult to achieve, as obtaining high-quality post-larvae and broodstocks is currently the main bottleneck for RAS shrimp farming in Europe. Therefore, it is important that the commercial RAS enterprises find markets with the highest potential, which seem to be the foodservice and restaurant sectors – these can market the story of a locally-grown premium shrimp better than a supermarket could.
To further develop RAS shrimp farming and establish a fresh-shrimp sector, we need the pioneers out there. While it is easy to say that these forerunners will fail, it would be more beneficial for the whole sector to support them as innovations developed by these pack leaders may also improve traditional shrimp farming in the hatchery and nursery phase, reducing costs and risks and improving the sustainability of the entire sector.
