Mountain Harvest Organics

The proposed business of Super Intensive Stacked Raceway Shrimp Farming is a new technology developed at Texas A&M University by Dr. Addison Lawrence. We have secured an agreement with Royal Caridea L.L.C. to build a production facility in Western North Carolina. Our objective is to produce one million pounds of fresh organic shrimp and market it locally, with the intent to expand production as we move forward. Cost of building and operation until revenue can be realized will be in excess of 9.5 million dollars. We will be seeking investors and looking into Small Business Administration USDA loans for funding. Payback for this project is estimated to be 3-4 years with an average selling price per pound around $7.50 per pound. Market competition is imported foreign head-off frozen shrimp. The US imports 5.5 billion dollars of shrimp annually from south East Asia, India and South America. Food safety is a major concern with foreign product. The ecological impact in producing countries has caused a decline in production in many of those countries. A devastating pathogen called Early Mortality Syndrome (EMS) has ravaged many production facilities completely wiping out shrimp production. Cost of shrimp has been escalating over the last few years and no relief is in sight. US pond farming has been on the rise, but is limited because of the low production rates and limited seasonal harvest. The production facility we propose is able to produce one million pounds of shrimp per year in staggered harvest in a climate controlled environment with automated feeding system, post-larvae nursery tanks, re-circulating filtration system and computer monitoring of critical metrics. The 20 stacked raceways will be constructed and consist of 7 rectangular ponds of 6-8 feet wide by 56 feet long that will produce 428,000kg of shrimp annually.

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