BALATON — The first official commercial customer for trū Shrimp product was announced on Tuesday.

Michael Ziebell, CEO of trū Shrimp, also announced that the state of Minnesota granted trū Shrimp a license to process shrimp from an Agriculture Utilization Research Institute (AURI) FDA registered food production pilot plant located on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall.  The license permits trū Shrimp to process, package, freeze and distribute the shrimp commercially.

“This is a big day for trū Shrimp and a major milestone in our mission to provide consumers with all-natural, clean shrimp that are free of impurities,” Ziebell said in a media release. “We can now begin to test market our shrimp to targeted markets and consumers. We know that if given the choice, consumers prefer trū Shrimp and we’re excited to start providing our product to food service operators and shrimp consumers.”

The Fish Guys, a specialty seafood distributor located in St. Louis Park, is the first commercial customer for 500 pounds of trū Shrimp product. The Fish Guys serves the upper Midwest with fine seafoods.

“We believe it is our responsibility to strive for sustainable solutions for future generations,” said Mike Higgins, owner and CEO of The Fish Guys. “trū Shrimp’s revolutionary technology and advanced water management process is a breakthrough. And the shrimp are superb; fresh, clean, sweet and absolutely beautiful. It will be exciting shrimp for us to sell.”

In January of 2019, trū Shrimp announced plans to build its first production facility in Madison, South Dakota. While there is no firm date for the official groundbreaking, the release said the company continues to raise the necessary capital and highlights the significance of the recent approval.

“We have a limited amount of shrimp coming from the trū Shrimp Innovation Center, and we couldn’t be happier to have The Fish Guys as our initial partner,” said trū Shrimp Director of Sales and Marketing, Jamie Brink-Thordson. “We have invested significant time and money researching, validating and commercializing our technology and processes and this is one more step in our team’s journey toward transforming the shrimp industry right here in the Midwest.”

The tru Shrimp company also operates a shrimp production training facility in Balaton.