NaturalShrimp International of Texas
built business plan as part of its strategy

By Zeke MacCormack

La COSTE, Texas— Far from the Gulf Coast, the rolling farmland of Medina County seems an unlikely spot to find fresh shrimp being peddled from saltwater.
But here they are, as long as a pencil, frantically swimming and jumping in a manmade estuary and greenhouse built by NaturalShrimp International.
The startup firm — which company officials say spent five years and $3 million to develop its business plan — has 10 employees and is now harvesting its first crop of Pacific white shrimp raised near La Coste.
Armed with cocktail sauce, company officials are pitching their tasty inventory to wholesalers, preparing to expand the plant and negotiating with partners for new farm sites planned in Texas and overseas.
"Fresh shrimp to local markets on a daily basis, that's our concept," company President Gerald Easterling said from the firm's "international headquarters," a doublewide trailer that holds offices, a laboratory and a not-yet-operational shrimp larvae nursery.
"You can't walk up and get live shrimp anywhere else in the U.S., or fresh shrimp 52 weeks a year, unless you go down to the coast and wait on the boats," said Easterling, a Dallas resident.
By late this year, once the existing 125,000-gallon estuary is supplemented with four more, he predicts the company's weekly harvest will hit 3 tons of shrimp, selling for $6 a pound and up.
More plants are envisioned in the Dallas and Houston areas, he said, and joint venture agreements have been signed with partners in Turkey, Spain and Mexico.
But, as other shrimp-farming endeavors have shown, it's not easy to turn a profit by raising delicate, tasty crustaceans in an artificial environment. Traditional outdoor shrimp farms must stave off disease to harvest each summer and fall, then face stiff competition from foreign growers whose low-cost frozen offerings are widely available at supermarkets.
" We're under pricing pressure in the outdoor market from the imports from Asia and South America," said Fritz Jaenike, general manager of Harlingen Shrimp Farms.
His operation raises about 1.5 million pounds of shrimp annually in 2,000 acres of ponds on both sides of the Mexican border.
In building an indoor shrimp farm, NaturalShrimp is following a path cut by previous failed efforts, the most notable in Texas being PenBur Farms of Buda.
About 2,600 investors lost a combined $14 million on that venture, which produced few shrimp but plenty of hard feelings before going bankrupt in 1997, according to published reports.
Easterling said the only similarity between his company and PenBur is they both raised shrimp.
"That Buda group was a hodgepodge that didn't take the time to do the research to prove up their system," he said. "Our technology is much more advanced. We've been patient and very diligent in our development process to ensure our investors the best opportunity for success."
Aquaculture interests across Texas are watching the company.
Granvil Treece, an aquaculture specialist at Texas A&M, said only time will tell if the operation has found a successful formula for indoor shrimp farming.
"They may be the group to crack the nut and make it work, but no one else has been able to do it," he said.
Even if production succeeds, "the question is, are they going to be able to find a readily available market?" wondered Robert Schmid, president of the Texas Agriculture Association.
Easterling said his firm expects seafood and sushi restaurants, as well as discerning grocery shoppers, to happily spend a little more to enjoy never-frozen, all-natural shrimp.
Sophisticated equipment is used at the La Coste site to continuously monitor the size and health of the shrimp, as well as the water's temperature, acidity, turbidity and other variables.
"It's tricky," said Doug Ernst, a biosource engineering specialist who consulted on the project before joining the company in 2005. "We're tracking 100 variables and 100 procedures."
Since the company's self-enclosed estuary system recycles all its water, and the greenhouse-style enclosure controls the air temperature, the system can be set up anywhere, he said.
It takes about 15 weeks to grow the eyelash-sized post-larval shrimp bought from hatcheries into a mature 5-inch shrimp weighing just under an ounce, he said.
The company plans to switch soon to buying day-old larvae to expand its hatchery stock as it ramps up production this year. In the lab, microscopic strains of algae are being grown in large jugs as food for the hatchlings.
Easterling predicts his firm will prove revolutionary in what he calls a behind-the-times industry.
"The shrimp industry has been mostly mom-and-pop, with once-a-year harvests. Now it's maturing like the chicken industry did 30 years ago," he said. "Improved genetics and technology give us the ability to mass produce a high quality product, inland, on a year-round basis."

Source:
MySanAntonio.com--Express News