Minnesota is home to only inland shrimp hatchery. Its future is now uncertain

NINA MOINI: The country's only inland shrimp hatchery, which happens to be in Minnesota, is asking for help to stay afloat. Minnesota Shrimp got its start five years ago and they had just started to see profitability when they ran into two big setbacks: the bankruptcy of a major customer and a faulty order of shrimp. It put them on the brink of closure just as things were getting going.

Barbara Frank and Paul Damhof are the owners of Minnesota Shrimp. They're both here to talk more about the situation and shrimp farming. Thanks so much for your time today. Barb, just to set the background for folks, can you describe what an inland hatchery is and then what you do? It sounds like you're raising baby shrimps and then you're selling them to others?

BARBARA FRANK: Yes, that is correct. What inland is different from what the other hatcheries have been in the United States is they're on the coast and they're using seawater as the base. So the whole thing runs a little different because we have no access to seawater and we can control diseases much better. We start with well water and clean it and clean it and clean it, and turn it into salt water and reuse on manufactured seawater. So that's the big difference between the typical hatchery and the inland hatchery.

NINA MOINI: It's so cool to learn about this. I did not know much about this. To who or to where do you sell your shrimp?

BARBARA FRANK: So prior to COVID, there was 865 shrimp-growing operations in the United States. It was a particularly hard-hit industry in COVID. And by a year and a half ago, there was only 85 left in the United States. The number is even lower now.

But where it works really well right now is existing farms that have a building that they could turn into a growing operation. So right now, our customers, other than the one that you mentioned that had gone out of business, which was not a farm, it was a bigger operation, we have five farmers in Iowa who have put in growing operations on their farm. We have one in Wisconsin. There's one in-- there's a couple in Minnesota that are very small, and one in Montana. And they're all people who have set this up as a business, some that sell directly to the consumer. So you could go buy fresh shrimp like you do when you're on vacation in any places where these are. But some of the Iowa ones also have a business plan that they're selling wholesale to grocery chains.

NINA MOINI: OK. So there's this GoFundMe that's been started to help raise money to keep Minnesota Shrimp going. Paul, can you tell us more about what led to the situation that you are facing?

PAUL DAMHOF: Well, it all started that led to this situation-- we get broodstock in roughly or approximately every four months. We get broodstock coming in and Barb and I, it takes us up four to six weeks to get them primed up, to get them conditioned to breeding age. And the batch that we had got in, we had some tough shipping. But again, Barb and I, it takes four to six weeks to find out, or it took us four to six weeks to realize that we had a problem in shipping.

We got on the phone immediately to get another batch of broodstock coming in. But again, now it's going to take us another six weeks to get these conditioned, to get them primed up before we get babies. And then once they do start mating, it roughly takes another 21 days before they're up to a saleable size and off to other farmers. So it's something that just takes time. When you've had a challenge or had a mistake, it's something that can't be fixed immediately. It just takes time to work through.

NINA MOINI: And Barb, how did you and Paul meet and decide to go into this business?

BARBARA FRANK: Both of us were livestock farmers, didn't know each other. I was in the poultry industry. Paul in the dairy industry. Both going out of business somewhat, mine not completely, but some buildings for different reasons. His for both family reasons and the dairy industry reason. And we have these buildings. This is really part of what my belief is in this, is we can revive rural areas that have these empty livestock buildings if we work on this industry.

So I had one building empty already that's 40 feet wide and 320 feet long. Paul had calf growing barns empty that could turn into it. So both of us built a growing operation. But you couldn't get babies anymore. There is no hatcheries dedicated to the United States. There was, most of the hatcheries that were here were dedicated to the Asia market and some of those foreign markets. So the vast majority would go there in Minnesota-- or United States growers only got the leftovers, which meant some times of the year you couldn't get any. And this was prior to this COVID issue and everything else.

So you can't run a business if you can't get seeds all the time. If you were a farmer and two years out of three you didn't get a seed, you're not a farmer anymore. So we decided we had to fix this problem. So we gutted Paul's growing operation and built Minnesota shrimp. It's been a high learning curve.

NINA MOINI: Sure, yeah. Paul, what would it mean for the industry? I don't have a sense for how developed the industry is here, but I mean, if you're the only inland one, what would it mean if you all went out of business do you think for the larger industry here?

PAUL DAMHOF: It would be total devastation. And here in the United States, we import between 88% to 90% of the shrimp that we consume here in the United States. And by having an inland hatchery here in the state of Minnesota, it's not-- Barb and I, we're affecting many other growers and that's what really hurts, is that through this struggle, we're also hurting other families and other businesses too, anyways. So, yeah, yep.

NINA MOINI: Well, Barb, are there any other kind of local or maybe state or even federal level support that you can turn to as you're navigating this?

BARBARA FRANK: So we really tried to get help from the state, from our representatives, tried to get people out to look at what was going on. Paul made calls all over the place, but there's a lot of problems in Minnesota right now. And the legislators are pretty overwhelmed. Since this GoFundMe came out, we have received calls and they're hoping to come out now. But prior to that, they just didn't have any more actual time to come and see what's here and what the problem is.

NINA MOINI: So you are hopeful that there might be some more movement and now there's a little bit more awareness around it. Just lastly, Paul, before we have to go, what keeps you both going or what keeps you going despite the challenges that you faced in this industry?

PAUL DAMHOF: I'm so thankful to have Barb, we share the same values, visions, morals, and it's about helping people out, sustainable, and having a high quality meat product. Our shrimp meat or the babies that we sell and the other farmers that are raising it, it's the quality of the meat. And we like to help people out, and the consumers are always front and forward in our book.

NINA MOINI: All right. Barbara and Paul, thank you both so much for your time and I'm wishing you both the best. Thank you.

PAUL DAMHOF: And we appreciate it.

BARBARA FRANK: Thank you.

NINA MOINI: Thank you. Barbara Frank and Paul Damhof are behind Minnesota Shrimp.