BALATON – Shrimp on the prairie? It’s strange but true, thanks to Ralco’s innovative and new tru Shrimp System. A state-of-the-art shrimp research center opened last month at the company’s technology center in Balaton, and plans for the first, full-scale commercial farm are being made. Along with the acquisition of the tidal basin, or shallow depth raceway system, Ralco is taking its nutrition and animal health expertise to grow the best shrimp possible.

“The research lab here is to prove what Dr. Addison did down in Texas,” tru Shrimp Systems Operations Project Manager Robert Gervais said. Addison created the patented Tidal Basin technology and serves as the project’s Chief Technical Officer.

The research center in Balaton includes 144 clear-water primary research tanks, 36 Bioflac primary research tanks, 16 nursery tanks and two commercial scale Tidal Basin lines.

The research tanks are complemented with laboratories focused on animal health, water quality and shrimp feed.

“Although it’s been proven … we’re scaling it up,” Gervais said. “Now we’re going to scale it up again into a large commercial farm which we call a harbor.”

Ralco is currently talking with investors and making plans to build a commercial farm and hope to do so in the next few years.

“I would think that first commercial harbor that’s built will be somewhere in the area so we can take what we learn here to that,” Gervais said. “But then we want to be able to license it all over the world.”

Ralco currently holds the tru Shrimp Systems license for the U.S. and nine foreign countries to sell its technology.

Traditional shrimp farms use outdoor ponds that are susceptible to weather, environmental changes, disease and predation from birds and other animals, But Ralco’s enclosed raceway system greatly decreases these risks and works to clean and refresh the system’s water supply.

“The benefit to us here is that over there they dump antibiotics in by the boatload to combat it,” Gervais said. “They put a million shrimp in a pond in southeast Asia and just hope to get 400,000 out. “That’s one way they combat it. They throw in feed, they throw in antibiotics and hope that it works.”

Ralco’s shrimp are warm water, salt water shrimp, so they need salt water kept at roughly 86 degrees to thrive.

“It’s hard to find saltwater in Minnesota,” Gervais said with a laugh.

So Ralco has to make its own with a specialized sea salt from Maryland to create a more natural environment for their shrimp.

They are also working to lower their tanks’ salt content to save on costs and to research if there are benefits to having a lower salinity for the shrimp.

“We can actually ween them off a higher salt content,” Gervais said. “The lower the salinity, the less salt we’ll use and the better off we’ll be cost-wise.”

Gervais hopes to reach the goal of a 90 percent survival rate with the enclosed and controlled system.

“With our system, we control the environment, we control the water, we control the feed – no antibiotics here,” Gervais said. “Everything is in such a controlled, consistent environment that we feel it will be a superior product in the end.”

Picking up a bag of Ralco shrimp at your local grocery story is still a ways down the road, but Gervais said it is in the company’s long-term plans and the realm of possibility.

“We’re selling licenses to help create a turnkey operation,” Gervais said. “When it comes to the building – this is the design, this is the layout, here’s what we know is successful – we work with your contractors to build that. Once that is completed, we come in with our biological team to help get that set up, we’ll be here to help you get it going and then once it’s operational, gradually ween ourselves off and turn it over to the investor group.”

Shrimp is the No. 1 consumed seafood in the world with more than $1.5 billion pounds imported every year. Individuals in the U.S. eat an average of 4 pounds of shrimp each year, and Gervais estimates one of their commercial harbors would raise about 8.5 million pounds of shrimp per year.

“Our grand concept is to feed the world. It’s a great protein, it’s got cholesterol in it but it’s good cholesterol,” Gervais said. “There’s only so much room for terrestrial animals left in the world. Aquaculture has got to be an alternative as we look forward.”