MARSHALL – For lots of people, their name is synonymous with “tiny.” But shrimp are the focus of some very big plans for an area company.

Members of the public gathered at the Red Baron Arena and Expo on Thursday to hear a presentation from tru Shrimp Systems, a new division of Ralco Nutrition. Over the past 20 months, tru Shrimp has been developing a method to raise shrimp in specialized indoor tanks, said tru Shrimp general manager Michael Ziebell. Now, they’re getting ready to take the next steps toward commercial production.

“This has potential to change Lyon County, and the state of Minnesota, for that matter,” said Cal Brink, executive director of the Marshall Area Chamber of Commerce.

Ziebell said an economic impact study by the University of Minnesota found the construction of one of tru Shrimp’s commercial shrimp facilities would have a $48 million impact on a five-county area. Ongoing operation of the facility would have an impact of $30 million a year, he said.

Thursday’s presentation wasn’t a sales pitch, Ziebell told the audience. But getting tru Shrimp’s system of shrimp production started represented a major opportunity for Marshall and the surrounding region, speakers said.

“We wanted to get it out in front of people,” Brink said.

Shrimp is one of the most popular seafoods in the U.S. Last year, Americans consumed around five pounds of shrimp per person, Ziebell said. But the majority of the shrimp eaten in the U.S. is imported from other countries around the world, and Ziebell said current aquaculture methods can’t meet consumer demands for production and safety.

Traditional shrimp farms use earthen ponds dug along the seacoast, Ziebell said. The ponds have problems with disease, which can kill more than half the shrimp raised in them, he said.

“Really, the only remedy they have found is mass application of antibiotics,” Ziebell said.

In recent years, the shrimp industry in Thailand has also come under fire for using slave labor and other illegal labor practices.

Taken altogether, those factors mean there’s a huge opportunity for a reliable, domestically-raised source of shrimp, Ziebell said. That’s where Ralco and tru Shrimp’s vision comes in.

“We want to build the first ever fully integrated shrimp company,” Ziebell said. Individual producers would sell their shrimp to tru Shrimp, and work with a tru Shrimp “center of excellence,” which would include facilities for shrimp hatching, genetics, and sales and marketing. Ziebell compared the system to ones used by Jennie-O Turkey and Christensen Farms.

The tru Shrimp production system uses specialized saltwater tanks called “tidal basins,” which provide a healthy environment for the shrimp while carrying away waste and uneaten feed.

“The risk of disease is greatly mitigated,” Ziebell said.

Each basin is about 9.5 feet wide and 37.5 feet long, he said. The basins can be built in vertical stacks to save space, and grouped together in a large production facility tru Shrimp calls a “harbor.”

Ziebell said a commercial harbor would have an area of nine acres, and use about 14 million gallons of water. The harbors will have their own wastewater treatment facilities, and recycle as much water as possible, he said.

A commercial shrimp harbor would be a $54 million investment, Ziebell said. However, the harbor would be able to produce about 7 million pounds of shrimp a year. It could pay for itself in three years, he said.

Ziebell said tru Shrimp is currently in the process of looking for a location and facilities for its central hub, as well as looking for possible international investors.

Given the economic impact shrimp production could have, Brink said area communities need to be proactive in supporting tru Shrimp’s development. He said the Chamber’s business development committee is using some of its economic development funding to hire a person to work with Ralco, and help make the shrimp industry a reality in the Marshall area. Brink said a candidate for the job may be hired as early as next week.