Meet the foundersLA's modular shrimp RAS

As far back as he can remember, Steve Sutton has harboured a passion for aquatic biology. Never to be found far from the ponds and rivers of his home in upstate New York in his youth, it seems fitting that he should eventually foster this passion for the aquatic into his career, despite a slight Wall Street detour along the way.

Whilst working at a shellfish farm and, following that, as a fisheries biologist for NOAA, Sutton quickly came to the realisation that his skills and passion for marine biology would best be suited for work in the rapidly developing aquaculture industry.

“I realised that aquaculture was full steam ahead and growing quickly around the world, but not always in the best way. A lot of times there's a financial pressure on aquaculture to cut corners and not do right by the environment, so I felt like that my skills could be best served in aquaculture,” Sutton reflects.

Whilst he started out consulting for third-party aquaculture operations, Sutton grew tired of working with operations which he felt lacked a solid plan to farm in a financially sustainable way. This led him to set out on his current venture – the establishment of a cutting-edge indoor shrimp farm in California, that aims to take advantage of the premium market for which America’s Golden State is famous.

“I wanted to be part of something that could actually grow and be profitable, something that other people would want to copy. If you can get people to copy your methods, if your methods are sound, then you can really make a difference quite quickly. I felt that shrimp offered a great opportunity because it's a very well supported industry,” he explains.

“There's a lot of great work being done on feeds and genetics and different farming methods, but you also have an enormous market and, whilst I think fish are just more interesting creatures, the more I farm shrimp, the more I find that they're pretty interesting as well.”

The pilot

Sutton initially set out to validate his scheme with a four-year pilot project – a leap of faith which he knew might result in failure. If that was to be the case, he would rather fail small and quickly so he could learn from his mistakes and iron out the wrinkles in his plan.

Sutton and his team used the pilot to work out what technology they wanted to employ, along with the farming protocols which would work best with these. Settling on a combination of clearwater RAS and biofloc, Sutton’s operation is focused primarily on efficiency and minimisation of water and resource usage.

“We use a clearwater RAS system so, in that way, we are quite similar to many salmon smolt facilities, but the water doesn’t have to be crystal clear. That’s part of our secret formula - knowing water quality parameter ranges which work for producing high quality shrimp. We are really focused on recycling all of the water all of the time, and we managed close to 100 percent water reuse,” he emphasises.

“It's not really an art anymore – there are no weather factors to consider, there is no generational knowledge that we're applying. We're really trying to measure things because I believe that if we can measure things and make changes, we can achieve a more stable production, more consistent revenue, and a much lower risk over the long term.”

Whilst perfecting the technical aspects of his operation, Sutton also used the pilot project to develop a feel for California’s premium shrimp market.

The farm quickly amassed a loyal customer base, including several Michelin-starred chefs, and soon outgrew its 20 tonne capacity thanks to regular buyers who kept coming back for more.

“Los Angeles is such an enormous market that I thought if I can put it close enough that chefs and consumers can come check it out, they're going to love it,” Sutton remarks.

“If I sold everything we had, we could have made good money, but I had to hold back and not sell in case the next month’s post-larvae were late or low quality. That's something of a roadblock for shrimp farmers in the US, but if you have a hatchery, you can control that supply, but then you also have to have an even bigger farm and an even bigger market to justify that. That's what we’re planning: we're going to have our own small hatchery,” he adds.

Scaling up

Following his success with the pilot farm, Sutton is now gearing up to open a new, commercial scale version which, if all goes to plan, will be able to produce 100 tonnes of shrimp – enough to begin to satisfy the demands of his established customer base. At least for now.

Already planning beyond this, Sutton aims to build the farm in a modular manner to pave the way for any further expansions that are required.

“The idea is a whole system for grow-out and nursery contained within one building. As we fill the market we can just add modules and those modules will be supported by a small hatchery laboratory and then a small processing facility as well,” he explains.

Whilst the pilot farm was initially funded by friends and family, including a significant contribution from his father, Sutton acknowledges that, in order to scale up in the way that he envisions, some more intensive investment will be needed.

“This is still a sort of family-owned business between me and my dad. We still own the majority but, now that we are now looking to scale up, it’s going to take a lot of money to realise. We're just really kicking off the investment now, and we’ll be taking on funding for the next quarter or so,” he explains.

“We're trying to stay within our means in terms of scale and operate from a profitable position. We're not looking to raise hundreds of millions of dollars and either hit a home run or go broke. We know this can make money, and the real plan would be to scale up to 400 or 500 tonnes within the next few years,” he adds.

A bright future for the Golden State

With the undeniable success of his pilot farm under his belt, Sutton can imagine overseeing up to 10 farms spread around the world over the next decade. Whether these will be owned completely by TransparentSea, or whether they will be joint ventures with other industry innovators will be determined in the near future.

“A lot has to be done well in order for this technology to be successful and reach its potential. Once this first farm is up-and-running we should be able to start making profits within 12 months of opening, as we should be able to get six crops a year. Beyond that, we're going to continue to improve it, and scale it and make it better. That's what I'd like to see,” Sutton concludes.