Mexican company develops million-dollar technology to raise shrimp without the sea – El Financiero

“Now it is time to go for more investors, one of the places where we plan to go is Japan, because our system allows us to deliver live shrimp”, said Herminio Blancoarchitect of the Free Trade Agreement at the time of former President Ernesto Zedillo, and current president of the consulting firm IQOM, an investor in Atarraya.

After its expansion in the United States, the company has the objective of landing in other countries and continents that are already interested.

“Our goal is to reach the top 5 percent of shrimp markets in the worldIn the United States we are going to expand, but for other destinations we are going to license, we already have companies interested in the Middle East and Europe,” Russek said.

Global shrimp market value touched $69 billion in 2023 and by 2032 it is estimated that it will reach 100,200 million dollars, according to the IMARC Group consulting firm.

Approximately 55 percent of the shrimp consumed worldwide is farmedIn Mexico, data from Conapesca show that this percentage is 79 percent, but there does not seem to be any intention to migrate towards a sustainable model.

“We sought to show current producers in Mexico how this could be done sustainably, and the truth is that they didn’t pay much attention,” Russek shared.

Among its advantages over current models is that Catching in the ocean must respect a closed season in March and September, a time when the price of the product triples.added to the fact that the practice with dragging nets At the bottom of the ocean it kills 20 times more life to get a kilo of shrimp.

While aquaculture has destroyed more than 50 percent of the world’s mangroves, The use of water per kilo of shrimp is 80 thousand liters while in the Shrimpbox it is 78 literswhich even after use becomes biofertilizer for agriculture.

Since its founding in 2020, Atarraya has shown significant growth, supported by investments such as the Series A of 3.9 million dollars in June 2022 and the Series A2 of 7.5 million in April 2024, which led the company to reach a estimated valuation of $47 million.

The shrimp feels and has memory

Shrimp They are a species that develops memory, learning about its environment and with behavioral responses such as fear and pain to escape from predators.according to research from the University of Washington.

Because of this, Russek assured that the well-being of the species is also taken care of, because if the shrimp becomes stressed it allows itself to die in a couple of days.

“The best paradigm to understand what is ethical is through stress, and it turns out that The shrimp is an animal that if stressed dies, begins to lose its legs, antennules, some change their behavior and become cannibals”he explained.

He added that the way the company reduces this stress is by replicating its ecosystem, and doing weekly pathological monitoring “where we see signs of stress if their paws, spots, if they have a choppy intestine, because like a dog if “They stop eating because something is not right (…) what we seek is to give them the best treatment in their life cycle, and at the time of harvest we modify the environment until they fall asleep and it is like an anesthesia,” he explained.