December 2, 2015

The province of Ontario has announced in a release it is investing up to $237,216 through the Local Food Fund in Alymer-based indoor saltwater shrimp farming startup, Planet Shrimp Inc. The operation, which is expected to draw more than $40 million in investments before it is fully developed, plans to establish itself in a former tobacco plant, becoming the largest indoor shrimp farming operation in the world with an initial harvest of approximately 225,000 kilograms per year, reports lfpress.

Planet Shrimp officials state that production at the site should be beginning in the New Year, and the company’s first crop of jumbo shrimp is expected to reach the market by the summer of 2016.

The funds invested in the startup will be used to finance a biologically secure, closed-loop production environment that will recirculate the water through filters every 90 minutes – a process that Mr. Budd told lfpresss would “virtually eliminate” the possibility of disease infiltrating the production system.

Aylmer once became prosperous through the now-declined tobacco industry, but Planet Shrimp president Marvyn Budd told lfpress that the town will soon benefit from another industry – shrimp farming.

The site, formerly the Imperial Tobacco plant, with over eight hectares of space under its roof, once processed millions of tons of tobacco leaf at its height of production in the 1960s.

The demand for shrimp in Canada is intensifying, driven by a growing Asian population within the country, but Planet Shrimp is also seeing higher demand from Canadian consumers who want locally sourced protein raised on locally sourced feed.

Until now Canadian importers such as Export Packers Co., which is an investor in the startup and which will be its distributor, imports more than two million tons of shrimp into Canada per year, have had to import frozen shrimp that had previously been kept in earthen outdoor ponds in Southeast Asia, but Planet Shrimp will be able to fulfill the unmet demand for fresh shrimp.