An Iowa land-based shrimp farming startup using recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) technology expects to deliver its first batch of shrimp to the market during the first quarter of 2021, company Founder and President Jackson Kimle told IntraFish.
Midland Company, founded in 2018 and formerly known as Kimle Aquaculture, uses its trademarked "algae-based" RAS technology to grow white shrimp.
RAS shrimp facilities primarily rely on either so-called “clear-water” or biofloc systems. Both systems use of bacteria to improve water quality, waste treatment and disease prevention.
Midland’s technology, the company said, simplifies RAS systems. The algae captures nutrients from water and carbon from the air, leaving the water purified and oxygenated in a single one-step wastewater treatment system. The nutrient-dense algae are then recovered to be used as an alternative regenerative fertilizer. This zero-discharge technology makes it one of the most sustainable forms of aquaculture today, it said.
Kimle said the company has used the technology to raise both shrimp and salmonids successfully, but going forward will focus on raising shrimp that are free of hormones, antibiotics, and chemicals.
The startup has raised $1.5 million (€1.3 million) so far and has built a 25,000-square-foot commercial facility in Story City, Iowa, about 45 minutes from Des Moines, Iowa’s largest city with a population of around 200,000. It is now looking to raise an additional $100,000 (€86,000), Kimle said. The facility, when fully built out, has the capacity to produce 80,000 pounds of shrimp annually.
The company is currently producing shrimp from one of its tanks but plans to build 12 more tanks on site.
