Expanding Production

As our first shrimp are starting to grow I am beginning to look at how and where the next level of funding will come from to enable us to expand production capacity both in Texas and outside the USA especially in this hemisphere.

It is very clear to me that regardless of the expertise many financial types possess, few (if any) have any real understanding of the evolutionary aspects of our aquaculture system, what it will mean for any country to be amongst the first to have us develop a production farm in their country, and finally how shrimp and seafood is sold globally. (Even a superficial treatment of these subjects would require more space then this blog will accommodate).

In point of fact, large quality shrimp (and indeed all shrimp and high end fin fish products) sell themselves, as the demand is exponentially greater then the supply and that trend is only going to increase in the decades ahead.

I am continually surprised by the naivete of people who talk about investing in aquaculture projects. They raise questions such as "who will buy your shrimp?, how do we know demand will not decrease?, can you give us a written guarantee from your buyer?"

Where do they figure the more than 3.4 million metric tons (6,834,330,128 pounds) of shrimp that is harvested yearly goes?  

Do they not understand that the aforementioned product is consumed worldwide and consumption is growing? 

Do they not understand that without having an operational production facility (adhering to HACCP and ISO standards) that is producing a product, it is impossible to get someone to say “I want to buy your product" sight and quality unseen?

  

Well, consumers are buying, and many of those buyers, more than 20%,  would like to have the large shrimp (U’s through U-15) but cannot get them due to overfishing of wild stocks and there is no aquaculture system to date except for GBT that produces those sizes on a regular basis.  

The following are just a few observations and comments about why we (the GBT's system) are different and more successful:

1. We are a niche operation. The niche of bio secure compared to other forms of shrimp production, i.e., wild caught and traditional aquaculture methods, gives us a higher quality product, grown in a sustainable manner that has positive environmental impacts and zero exchange to prevent any type of pollution or contagion release into the environment.

2. Overfishing has led to reduction or decline in large size shrimp (where value is at its highest) and resulted in small to mid sizes in shrimp being caught.  Aquaculture has raised primarily small sizes with some mid sizes coming out of Asia.  Due to the cost of carrying animals to large sizes in grow out and issues with diseases and viruses from exposed ponds and greed to move product to market as soon as possible; the typical aquaculture farm will itself end up like the wild caught fishing industry….it will fade away.  Innovations that the GBT system brings to aquaculture is the future and GBT will continue to innovate and improve its system.

3. Our systems gives us the benefit of large size shrimp U10-U15 in shorter periods, not typical of sizes and growth in open pond systems.  GBT’s larger sizes fit a niche in the shrimp market for a size traditionally not abundant.

4. The large size shrimp also meets the lower end of the lobster market (an already declining  supply side product primarily wild caught with low aquaculture potential at this date and time).

5. Finally, the fuel costs of moving products from Asia to America via reefer and containerized shipments will continue to increase making the production of shrimp in this hemisphere a cost advantage to the largest market in the world……the U.S.A.

GBT has a sustainable, bio-secure, recirculating and environmentally friendly, aquaculture system commercially ready to yield a significant profit including a very sizable IRR.  

Let the search begin.