- I visited a sustainable shrimp farm called TransparentSea in Los Angeles, California.
- Inside, the warehouse was filled with tanks for the shrimps' various stages of growth.
- Unlike some fisheries, it has an extensive water-filtration system and harvests shrimp by hand.
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I toured a farm that ethically harvests shrimp, and it taught me how gross seafood production is. Here's a look inside.
May 20, 2022, 7:00 AM ET
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Shrimp is the most consumed seafood in the US, but some shrimp companies are less than transparent about their supply chains — and some have even been tied to slave labor practices outside of the country.
The seafood industry also contributes heavily to ocean and waterway pollution across the globe as well as the decline in mangroves.
Source: The New York Times
Mangroves act as buffers against storms and are the home to wildlife like fish, reptiles, mollusks, crabs, and more, but they're often destroyed and cleared to make way for ponds for shrimp production.
Source: World Wildlife
'Bycatch,' the marine life accidentally caught during commercial fishing like dolphins, rays, and turtles, is also an issue — almost 2 billion pounds of it is thrown away by US commercial fishermen each year.
Source: World Wildlife, NPR
An urban shrimp farm in Los Angeles, TransparentSea, is trying to change all of that by producing local, ethically harvested shrimp.
Source: TransparentSea
I visited the farm, which was opened in 2020 and is located in a commercial warehouse in Downey, California.
The 18,000-square-foot warehouse produces over 500 pounds of shrimp a week, according to the farm's founder Steve Sutton.
They farm indigo-toned prawns, which are never frozen and sold fresh to local restaurants and customers at the Santa Monica Farmers Market.
TransparentSea's president and founder, Steve Sutton, is an aquaculture scientist.
He and his engineering partner Douglas Ernst designed most of the systems used at the farm using aquarium technologies to filter and recycle the water supply.
The extensive filtration system keeps the water clean and filtered, a step many shrimp farms skip, which Sutton said results in shrimp living in their own waste and being unhealthy.
I sampled some of TransparentSea's shrimp myself, which tasted great raw. It tasted nothing like the mushy and watery shrimp I've bought at the grocery store, much of which is chemically treated.
Source: The New York Times
Sutton told me it's OK to eat their shrimp raw the same day it's harvested because it's fresh and untreated. They don't add any pesticides, antibiotics, or hormones in the growing process, and no preservatives during or after harvest.
Inside the warehouse, this tank houses the 2-week-old baby shrimp that TransparentSea buys from a hatchery in Florida.
For 3 to 4 weeks, the baby shrimp live in this first tank and are fed fish meal pellets to grow healthy and strong.
Next, the shrimp are moved to a second, larger tank where they grow for 8 to 9 more weeks until they reach about one ounce in size and are ready to be harvested.
These shrimp are a couple of weeks from harvest and will head directly to a customer afterward.
The growing shrimp are fed small pellets, purchased from a US vendor, that are made of fish parts, fish oil, and some plant protein and starches.
The shrimp are harvested every Tuesday and Friday and reap about 300 to 400 pounds per batch.
To harvest, one or two of the three aquaculture technicians throws on a wetsuit to jump in the tank and wind a giant net around the tank to trap the shrimp.
Before sorting, the shrimp are killed in cold water and die within a minute, which Sutton said is the most humane method and the best way to preserve quality.
While many farms dump the shrimp into a bath of chemicals before the ice water, TransparentSea avoids any chemical treatment.
Source: The New York Times
Next, the shrimp are transferred to the sorting room and sorted by size.
They're out on the table for no more than 20 minutes before going on ice and heading out for delivery.
Sutton said the average shrimp changes hands 7 to 8 times and is frozen and thawed 2 to 3 times before reaching the consumer, so beyond not being fresh, the texture and taste is deteriorated.
Since TransparentSea sorts all of their shrimp by hand, unlike other factories that sort by machine, they can offer a unique product — soft shell shrimp. This shrimp is extremely delicate and can be eaten without peeling the shell.
By 11 a.m. on harvest days, the shrimp goes out for delivery, 70 to 75% of which goes to local restaurants.
They don't use distributors because it's common for dishonest distributors to substitute inferior products, Sutton said.
Source: The Fish Site
This summer, TransparentSea plans to open part of the warehouse as a storefront and launch 'shrimp fishing' to the public, a fun activity that's popular in Asia.
Source: The Next Somewhere