Company will increase production at Texas and Iowa plants and plans new facilities in Florida and Nevada
NaturalShrimp Inc., a biotechnology aquaculture company that has developed and patented the first shrimp-focused, commercially operational RAS (recirculating aquaculture system), will expand production at its existing Texas and Iowa shrimp production facilities, and with new planned facilities in Florida and Nevada.
NaturalShrimp will begin construction of a new shrimp production building on its 37-acre property in La Coste, Texas, in the first quarter of 2022. The new 80,000-square-foot building will be approximately twice the size of the current existing production building of 40,000 square feet, enabling the company to effectively triple the shrimp production output in Texas. In Iowa, the company will begin the retrofit of the entire Webster City shrimp production facility based on the successful integration of the company’s technology in a portion of the facility. Future expansion plans will also include the Blairsburg and Buckeye facilities in Iowa.
The company has formed a joint venture with Hydrenesis Inc. to seek economic development funds to build a 240,000-square-foot inland shrimp production facility in Florida. A location has been chosen and the facility is in the final planning stage. Design and construction will proceed after the successful capture of government funds.
NaturalShrimp also intends to expand into Las Vegas to serve additional markets and increase geographic reach to the West Coast. A 480,000-square-foot mega shrimp production facility is in the early planning stage and construction is expected to begin in the third calendar quarter of 2022.
“With weekly production on track and numerous sales channel partners in place, we are now focused on building the capacity needed to meet expected demand of our land-based gourmet-grade shrimp,” said Gerald Easterling, CEO of NaturalShrimp. “We are rapidly attracting customers and finalizing customer agreements with distributors and processors for long term supply agreements, and the expanded production at our current facilities will help to quickly meet increasing long-term growth targets. With funds in place from a recent financing, we are ready to commence improvements at our current facilities.
“During 2021, we evaluated strategic new facility locations in the U.S. in key markets to build additional capacity. After an intensive analysis and the completion of substantial due diligence, sites in Florida and Nevada both met our requirements to build highly scalable, capital-efficient new facilities. We are now exploring options for the potential purchases, conducting further due diligence, and are moving forward as quickly as possible to finalize the projects. Taken together, planned production increases at our current and future facilities would increase capacity, positioning us to rapidly expand our geographic footprint and meet our long-term production goals.”
