How One Company Is Harvesting Shrimp in an Arizona Desert

When you think of growing and harvesting shrimp, you don’t often think of the desert or city, but that’s about to change. In fact, one high-tech shrimping operation wants you to get comfortable with the idea that shrimp can be local to anywhere – even a shipping container in downtown Chicago.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Americans consume about 4.6 pounds of shrimp per person per year, much of which is imported and has gone under scrutiny in recent years for the inclusion of banned antibiotics.

That’s why companies like Arizona Desert Shrimp are looking toward aquaculture to change the way we grow shrimp, whether it be in its natural habitat or in a more controlled environment.  Their mission is to utilize the latest technology to give people shrimp that is healthy, sustainable and accessible – even if it may be outside the box of how we typically think of shrimp farming.

As consumers become more and more interested in where their food comes from, the company also aims to make traceability a priority in the shrimping business.

“Millennials have become very interested in the sourcing of their food,” says Phil Peck, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Arizona Desert Shrimp. As Peck points out, many are well educated on where their food comes from and care about the sustainability of its production.

See more: Superior Fresh Nets Success With Sustainable Wisconsin Salmon Farm

Growing Shrimp in a Pond

Arizona Desert Shrimp set out on their mission by harvesting shrimp in a pond in the desert. It may sound strange, but the company took over the land from a former shrimp company in Gila Bend, Arizona. The location is close to a large aquifer, making the process easier. They utilized existing research from Texas A&M University as a starting point to developing their technology.

They hired Dr. Maurice Kemp, who has a Ph.D. in medical microbiology with a specialization in virology, to help with the process and assure the shrimp remain disease-free.

They also brought on board Danielle Leoni, executive chef of The Breadfruit & Rum Bar in Phoenix, who serves a lot of seafood in her Jamaican restaurant. She is able to both advise on sustainability and give a valuable chef’s perspective on the operation.

On the sustainability side, Leoni helped the company think through how to be efficient in all parts of the process, from the feed to the harvest to the packaging. She has also worked closely with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program, which helps consumers understand the sustainability of their seafood choices.

The pond operation was set up with open-air raceways (think a lazy river for shrimp). This helped the shrimp constantly move around and receive ample feed. The first harvest was in the fall of 2020.

Although the shrimp checked all of the boxes in terms of sustainability and taste, pond operations do come with limitations. Given the climate, it can’t be a year-round venture.

“The water temperature needs to be around 83 degrees for an optimal environment, and with the pond, we can only get one or two harvests a year,” Peck says.

Generation Two Technology

The team continued to develop what they refer to as “generation two technology” as they thought about what the future could hold for sustainable shrimp farming, not just in Arizona, but all across the world.  They wanted to change the misconception that those who are inland can’t have access to fresh seafood, so they came up with a closed vertical method to farming shrimp utilizing the raceway technology.

“The idea behind it is you start off with post larvae. Those guys are on the top tray and as they start to grow, you move them from level to level. Four and a half months later you can harvest them depending on the size you’re looking for,” Peck says.

This allows for more frequent harvests of standard-sized shrimp and helps the producers get more specific with shrimp size, producing smaller shrimp for salads, for example, which may make their operation even more appealing to chefs like Leoni.

“We’ve mastered the technology to avoid that bad shrimp texture and heavy iodine flavor,” says Leoni.  We can control the salinity of the water to give a perfect bite in the shrimp.”

They are hoping to implement this new method in 2021, keeping the pond operation going for the time being, but likely phasing it out in the future. This will give them the ability to open locations across the country – even in New York City or Chicago, where you might never have thought of domestically grown shrimp.

It may be hard to wrap your head around Midwest- or East Coast-grown shrimp, but it’s not too far off.

We are changing the landscape of how people are growing,” says Peck, who knows technology will allow this trend to continue and improve.  “We are constantly thinking of better and smarter ways to create a more sustainable environment.”