NaturalShrimp cuts ribbon in Iowa facility, begins stocking shrimp in Texas

Dallas, Texas, U.S.A.-based NaturalShrimp has cut the ribbon on a Webster City, Iowa-based facility it acquired from Alder Aqua in August 2020.

The facility previously produced barramundi under the VeroBlue brand, and was acquired by NaturalShrimp for USD 10 million (EUR 8.3 million). Involved in the deal was the purchase of tanks, rolling stock, inventory, permits, customer lists, and contracts.  

Now NaturalShrimp has begun the installation of recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) equipment in Iowa. The company has three facilities, which contain infrastructure to support the production of shrimp, the company said in a release. One site has 240 tanks at 10,000 gallons each, a second has 24 tanks at 10,000 gallons each, and the third has 240 tanks that range from 200 to 500 gallons each.

“This gives us a footprint in the Midwest. We’ve looked at this facility being able to handle Chicago, Minneapolis and all other areas around here. The Webster City plant would likely be able to produce thousands of pounds of shrimp per week.” NaturalShrimp CEO Gerald Easterling told the Daily Freeman-Journal. “You should start to see a huge amount of activity around here starting the first week of February.”

At the same time the company cut the ribbon on its newly-acquired facility, it also began stocking postlarvae shrimp in its nursery tanks in its La Coste, Texas production facility. The company announced on 2 February that the company has stocked four of its nursery tanks.

“These four nursery tanks will serve to provide final testing of the facility support systems that control feeding, heating, aeration, and filtration,” the company said. “This includes testing the installed feed controllers, boilers, and blowers along with the Company platform technology filtration equipment.”

The La Coste facility is also new, due to a fire in March that destroyed the production plant. Despite the setback, the company soon vowed to rebuild the facility, and soon after that announced that it planned to double the original facility’s production capacity, shortly before announcing that it had acquired the assets of Alder Aqua.

NaturalShrimp’s 2020 may have started with a fire, but its trajectory since then is marked more by its acquisitions and joint ventures. Following the initial acquisition of Alder Aqua’s facilities, the company entered a joint venture with Ecoponex Systems International in October. Then in January, the company announced it entered into a joint venture with Hydrenesis Inc. to build a USD 25 million (EUR 20.7 million) RAS shrimp farm in northern Florida.  

The company said it is now planning to bring in biweekly supplies of postlarvae to its Texas facility to later transfer to growout tanks, with a goal of “year-round weekly harvests once the 40 growout tanks are full of shrimp.”