Ontario shrimp farm

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When you think of Ontario’s more than 50 000 farms, corn, cattle, and carrots come to mind. But just south of landlocked London one producer is growing an unlikely protein that could change the way we eat one of the most popular seafoods available.

Aylmer is about to become home to a farm that relies not on soil, but saltwater. “Eventually we’ll be the largest indoor closed containment shrimp farm in the world.” said Planet Shrimp president Marvyn Budd.

Business developer Marvin Budd is constructing a 225 000 square foot farm that when complete, will produce 3 to 5 million pounds of pacific white shrimp per year.

“We’ve come up with a design and a technology and a process that allows us to scale it up. To produce far more per square foot than most any other farm.”

About half of the world’s shrimp is grown on farms, mostly outdoors, where Budd says there is a risk of disease spreading. “We have no chance for disease because we treat our water through a bio-filter, a natural filtering system on site.”

Most of the locally farmed shrimp will end up in restaurants, allowing chefs to offer fresh shrimp on their menus all year round, which is an exciting possibility for chefs like Jason Parsons. “To have shrimp all over the menu, we’d be kids in a candy shop.”

At Peller Estates restaurant, 97% of the products Parsons cooks with are Canadian. Almost half from Ontario. “We do put shrimp on the menu from time to time but it’s more like the spotted prawns from British Columbia. They’re great but they don’t travel the best.”

Soon, fresh won’t be far off. Planet Shrimp is hoping to send out its first harvest in the spring.