Nation's Largest Shrimp Farm Located in Indiantown Florida - HomeGrown Shrimp USA!

The largest shrimp farm in the United States is located, believe it or not, in Indiantown, Florida. Despite being some 32 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, HomeGrown Shrimp USA is producing tons of nearly prawn size White Pacific Shrimp, known more affectionately as White Footed Shrimp or to be bluntly honest in shrimp terminology, Penaeus vannamei.

While the name may be unfamiliar, so too may be the taste of real fresh shrimp. Most people in the USA are familiar only with frozen or frozen at sea and delivered in so called "fresh" condition for sale onshore.

Sam Yates, the Host of The Florida Business Forum went on the hunt for true fresh shrimp in Indiantown with the CEO of HomeGrown Shrimp USA, Robins McIntosh, who is also Vice President with agro-industrial giant Charoen Pokphand Foods, a worldwide corporation. 

Transcript

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 0:06

Hello everyone and welcome to another informative episode of the Florida Business Forum Podcast. Let's open the Florida Business Forum floodgates and let the information begin to flow. Here's your Florida Business Forum information guru and Anchorman Sam Yates. Hello, everyone. I'm Sam Yates with the eights and Associates public relations and marketing. The information floodgates are indeed open for the Florida Business Forum Podcast and the information is flowing. And that's an awesome analogy for what we're going to be talking about today because you can almost see the sea water flowing, and I'm giving you a little hint about what we're talking about. But I'm On Location at the US headquarters for home grown shrimp USA located in Indian town, Florida. Now Homegrown Shrimp is a revolutionary sustainable marine water shrimp farm that is part of the CEP group, a Thailand based agro industrial and food company. And I'm fortunate enough today to have the person who is responsible for this shrimp farm and in more ways than one and it's really a fascinating story. And I'm really interested to hear all the details from Robins McIntosh, Mr. McIntosh. Welcome to the program today.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 1:27

Thank you very much. I appreciate the time and the ability to be able to explain a little bit homegrown Shrimp. But I must say that it's not just me, there's a whole team both in Thailand and in Florida, behind this effort.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 1:43

And I have to say I'm familiar with some of the team members here at the Indian town facility because I've bought Trump here and I'm gonna give them a nice pat on the back. They are some of the friendliest, courteous people I have ever met. And for them to be representing you on a daily basis. I think they all deserve a raise. Well,

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 2:05

that's good to hear. But let me tell you it shrimp farming, I think is one of the hardest jobs that you can have in the world. And not only are they friendly, they're also very hardworking.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 2:16

You know, I think that is probably the by word of the day when it comes to your facility here hard working Robins and I just did a walkthrough literally, of the facility. And there's a lot of work that goes into it. And I want to get into that. But I also want to let our audience know a little bit about you. Tell us about yourself.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 2:38

Well, I've been in shrimp farming since 1978. I started with warehouser with freshwater prawns, which I'll call a shrimp down in Homestead, Florida. And from their trip has kind of been my navy, it's moved me around the world because shrimp are tropical, and it never has taken off in the United States. It's been a tropical based industry. So in the time I've been in shrimp, I have lived in Burma, Myanmar. I've lived in Thailand, Philippines, a little bit in India, some in Ghana, Brazil, Guatemala, Belize, and some in Mexico. So I have been able to see the world through shrimp. And with all that experience, it has certainly helped me create new ideas and technologies as we've progressed over the last 40 years.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 3:36

Now, in doing some of my research, your name keeps coming up, you are recognized. You are recognized as industry expert and that means that you must be doing something right you know your shrim

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 3:52

I think that that means I've been able to learn from mistakes, you know people call me expert and I will rebut that with I probably killed more shrimp than any other human being on this planet. But in having mistakes you learn from it and you ask the question, How can this be done better? What are the issues how can we accomplish and overcome issues? And if I will pat my back self on the back? The strengths are I've I've tried to answer questions that other people have a hard time even asking. And in doing so yes, the industry has moved a tremendous distance from where we were in the late 1970s completely different today than it was in the in the infancy in the beginning.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 4:42

Home grown shrimp USA relatively new you're here in Indian town I believe. March of 2024. there abouts will be a year.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 4:52

That'll be our first anniversary, march 24. The start of this actually was in 2018 it took a little time to get this off and going because of the pandemic really delayed things. But yes, one year ago, we commenced operations. And today we are in full operation, producing shrimp weekly.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 5:17

Without going into information that competitors or pirates may be able to use, walk us through the process of what happens here.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 5:26

I really don't try to withhold information from competitors. There's no technology that we use here, that's not open source. What we do is sometimes we may combine technologies in a unique way that is innovative in the way that we combine it. But in shrimp farming, it's not as much as just reading what you're doing, or knowing how you're doing it is the execution and the people doing it. And you can tell somebody what you do, and the majority of people can't do it. So I don't withhold secrets, and I don't look at competitors as not telling what we're doing. You

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 6:03

actually start with the larval stage of the shrimp and raise them to maturity. I want to come back to that larval stage of the shrimp in a moment. But how long does it take to go from a larval shrimp to a mature shrimp in your process?

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 6:23

Well, if we're going all the way to the mature shrimp, where we're reproducing that shrimp, that shrimp would be 15 days in the larval process. And then another 180 days in the growout. It's not the size that we're looking for in maturation, it is the age so we can't short shorten that. So it's 180 days. But

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 6:50

an interesting note. And I'll say this, for the folks who have a relative living in the area, your particular variety of shrimp right now is called the bolt.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 7:05

And that's correct. And that's based on the speed at which it matures. Sharon pokefun, we had been developing shrimp for outdoor culture for Asia, mostly. And we saw we had lines that were good, but those lines weren't dependent on just growth rate, they were dependent on disease tolerance, as well as growth. So when we start moving indoors and an absolute bio secure zones, like we have in the United States or in Europe, we can devote all of our energy and producing or selecting for just growth, forget the disease tolerance. And so we can make more progress and go faster. And so when we knew we were coming to the United States, and I had seen what had been happening in Europe, and the failures in Europe and the failures in the United States, I had come to the conclusion or we'd come to the conclusion to make shrimp farming successful in Europe, the United States, it was all about growth rate. And so we started developing what I call the bulk line, which is really just growth.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 8:06

Now, when you say developing, I want to make sure that I underscore for our audience, that these are not genetically altered products, these are not genetically

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 8:19

altered, there's no GMO or alteration any way other than selecting what's already there. So we select over and over through generations for the characteristics that you want. And if there's enough variance in the natural population, you can move the population. And so surprisingly, we found a lot of variants in the populations that we started with, for growth, and therefore you're able to concentrate those growth genes in animals that weren't concentrated in the original populations. And that's how we increase the growth rate. Now,

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 8:54

ladies and gentlemen, I also have to tell you that when we talk about the shrimp farm, homegrown USA shrimp, it's a farm product. And here on the farm, the shrimp reproduce. And I was fortunate enough earlier, during the tour with Mr. McIntosh to see the shrimp in their reproductive stage and I didn't even blush. It's a fascinating, fascinating thing that you're doing here because part of your product, and I want to talk about the mature shrimp as well. But you're also doing for lack of a better description seed stock of shrimp for distribution around the world. Correct.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 9:38

So basically, it's a small operation here, but we have to have a hatchery because we're trying to do a totally closed system within the United States. We have to have the special stock because we're really dependent on as fast growth into shrimp as you can get. And all of that is done on our site, which is a disease free compartment. We're inland away from coasts. So it's much easier to keep all marine diseases out of this, of this location, which is really key to success. And so yes, it's all done here. We bring in the improved broodstock, the parent shrimp, which come from also a disease free compartment, we bring it in here and there. And then we basically reproduce those into larvae. And then into the post larvae, which are the baby shrimp, the baby shrimp are stocked into the grow out into the tanks for production. And then those tanks are harvested and sent to packing. And that's what we sell.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 10:35

What you sell is absolutely delicious. I know, because I've tasted it. For the market in the United States.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 10:43

The total poundage, if you include head on is, is more than 2 million pounds, probably closer to 2.4 million pounds.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 10:54

That is a an impressive number. It's it seems that John Q Public in the restaurant, industry and industry, overall, people are really getting to know and love the taste of shrimp fair assessment.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 11:08

Again, it's about availability. So when I was young, the availability was wild. And it was only seasonal in the state of Florida where I was. And that was, you know, that was kind of a dream of my father to make it agriculture that you could have it year round. And it did become year round, but the production was not that high. And in the year 2000, there was less than a million tonnes of shrimp produced. So it still wasn't that available. When we applied the new technologies that we did in Asia 2001 2002, we've increased the world's supply to 5 million tonnes, that's probably 5,000,001. One point 11 11 million tonnes or 11 million pounds. I speak metric. So I get confused by going to the English, but five, five metric tons from one metric ton in a period of 20 years. And that's made a lot more shrimp available in 2000, there was only two pounds eaten in the United States. Now it's closer to five pounds of headless shrimp eaten in the United States. So it's that availability that has driven the price down and availability which again is made shrimp the most popular seafood in the United States. Before I think it was 2010, it was tuna. But shrimp surpassed tuna as the most popular seafood and it's it's remained the most popular seafood in the United States.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 12:44

Doing a bit of research before coming here to sit down and interview you. I found that the percentage of farm raised shrimp is approximately 90% of the market in the United States and growing,

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 12:59

at least again, the supply of wild shrimp. For me when you're taking wild shrimp you're hunting, agriculture is always surpassed hunting. And we are basically aquaculture is nothing more than the farming of water of the oceans. Whereas fishing is hunting of the marine environment. So it can never be expected to be as efficient as farming. And that's why farming has has basically become the major supplier of shrimp. The oceans are not capable of sustaining 5 million tonnes consumption in the world 6 million tons of consumption in the world every year. So it's really dependent on farming to provide the availability that humans and it doesn't matter the country whether it be Europe, China, Southeast Asia, Australia, the Americas shrimp is considered a premium meat.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 14:02

To that end, I know that the actual farming process is is complicated, but it is a basic process. And I want to point out something you said earlier these are salt water shrimp, and I'm probably going to butcher the official name there Pacific white shrimp penaeus vannamei. Perfect. Now, when we talk about the different varieties, why that particular shrimp for farming here?

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 14:37

Well, again, we've improved that shrimp. So if we go back to the year 2000 The free mir shrimp in the United States the most available shrimp the United States was the black tiger, because that was the shrimp of Asia. Asia moved to the white Pacific shrimp in 2000 to 2003. That's because one we We had domesticated the Pacific white, we had a disease free stock and the Black Tiger had become diseased. So we put the disease free white shrimp in Asia, and then we started selecting on that to improve it. And we've improved it three times from where it was in 2002. So with that production, we've had a reversal, whereas Black Tiger was 80% of the world's market back in 2000. Now, Black Tiger is only 20% of the world market with white shrimp surpassing that because we've got the selective breeding, and we can grow it at higher yields.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 15:39

When we take a look at farming, shrimp, we're saving the ocean. A lot of people don't realize that but we're saving the ocean.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 15:47

We certainly are saving in terms of disrupting the ocean if your fishing trip off the bottom. If it's done in the proper manner, then we basically are not impacting the ocean. Now, in the past, there's been mistakes made. In the 80s and the 70s. When we didn't really know very much about shrimp farming, we assumed that shrimp want their native habitat. And we found the shrimp or they found the shrimp in the mangroves. They found them in these coastal areas. And so people started putting the farms in the mangroves because we thought that was where they wanted to be. But as we've learned more about farming, the mangroves are the worst place for shrimp. We want them at higher elevations where we can keep pond bottoms clean, and we can recycle the pond bottoms. So we no longer make that mistake. So with what we know the mistakes we've made of exchanging too much water, putting water into the ocean that shouldn't have been put there. Getting out of the coastal zone to the sensitive areas of salt marsh and mangrove shrimp farming today, I think is much more compatible with the environment. And I think does lead to a healthier environment while providing the world's favorite seafood.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 17:04

And it's a healthy seafood. One of the things that a lot of people are concerned about with wild seafood is microplastics. These are micro plastic free, they're free of everything. They're pure.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 17:19

Again, we're very we're unique at home grown, and that we are inland, we're away from the coastal environment. So we we don't have a pump into the ocean. We have to make our seawater, we're basically pumping groundwater, fresh, clean groundwater, we're been putting it through a process to make it even cleaner. And then we're adding the salt so they don't have the marine influence of microplastics are dioxins are some of the toxins that people are worried about? That you would have in the coastal seawater? So yes, we do have an advantage that we offer a product that is not tainted by pollutants that now are prevalent in in the world's oceans. So

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 18:01

that's a big plus, if you are a shrimp fan, you sell right here at the farm. We do sell the farm. I again, that's not a popular aspect of what I do. But we do that now. We also sell online, we're trying to establish more outlets outside the farm. Because we know it's a problem coming to the farm. We're not exactly in an urban area. So I wouldn't use that as one of our strong points. But yes, we do. Well, I'm glad that you do. I'm 18 minutes away, and I'm a frequent visitors. So I'm glad that you do

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 18:38

I have to tell you one point hopefully we'll have a distribution point five minutes away.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 18:42

You know what, I think that's a good thing for our audience to know that if you have some thoughts, you know, reach out, I will help funnel those thoughts back to Mr. McIntosh. What about CPF now, that's the overall parent company. And that might be something a lot of folks are not familiar with. Who is CPF

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 19:07

CPF. Ciaran poke fun foods is one of the large agro companies in the world, and certainly the largest agro company in Asia. It is the work of a man. Khun TuneIn, who is the Senior chairman of this company, he started this company back in the 70s with the vision of feeding Asia, in the 70s. Asia was an importing nation. They didn't feed themselves and he saw Asia as an exporting nation. So it was in his idea, define technology, bring technology to Asia, make Asia self sufficient and food to the point that it could actually export food. And those goals had been reached. Asia is a net exporter of food through the technologies that he went out and sourced and brought And to Asia.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 20:02

And if you do any research on the company 17 countries that they're they're now producing in and including here in the United States. I've lost track. But that sounds about right. Are you the only facility in the United States for them? We

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 20:18

have another company. We have two other companies. We have Palacio, which is kind of a processed food producer in Minnesota. And we have a company called Sharon poke fun foods. In Maryland, which is an import distribution company and one of the larger M distributors of frozen shrimp in the United States.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 20:36

How much do you produce here,

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 20:38

we produce enough for a dinner. I wouldn't, I wouldn't look at what we produced. As anything as this is a this is a demonstration. At best. It's a demonstration to show that the technologies that we have away from the coast that we can recycle water year after year, and we can produce shrimp consistently and sustainably is a function is a workable concept. And we can do maybe 250 tonnes sounds like a lot, and it probably is the largest shrimp farm in United States. But it's not big. It's not big at all. To be really commercially viable and get our price points to the point that I would like to see this be able to grow, we need to achieve a few things to it. And those things are that we can do this consistently with the technologies that we're introducing. And so the whole idea of the 250 tonnes is to show demonstrate that it is doable. And then when the confidence is reached, put these out at 1000 tonne farms at 1000 tonnes, I believe we would be commercially viable, and 1000 tons by my calculation would be the size of a farm you would need in a major urban area. And so the way we did this at home grown, it's anywhere anytime. That means it's an indoor enclosed facility, I can do this shrimp in New York, I can do this shrimp, and Colorado I can do this, we just need around 40 or 50 acres of land. And we can do this kind of farming environmentally. And so that's the that's the vision of the future. We have these units of 1000 2000 ton farms to supply a local urban area where fresh shrimp can be made available. Because you can't import fresh shrimp to do fresh shrimp. You need to produce them in the United States. And that's really the only advantage we have. And that anybody that has actually had a fresh shrimp and unfortunately, most Americans and I mean most Americans have never tasted a fresh shrimp. It is an experience. And that's the experience that we hope to provide is the United States, Americans have the possibility of eating fresh, never frozen shrimp that are basically no chemicals added during the processing.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 23:08

Little personal testimonial, my wife won't mind that I mentioned she's on dialysis awaiting a kidney. And one of the things that is highly recommended is for her to have a certain protein count. She loves shrimp, but she was not eating shrimp. Because they were not fresh shrimp. I'm probably going to keep you in business because she eats a lot of shrimp, but it's a it's a high protein food, vitamins, minerals B 12. When you were saying earlier, it's a it's a great food, and people need to taste it. That's that's one of the reasons that this market is a growing market. Well, I

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 23:47

think it's a delicious food. It's delicious, especially if it's fresh. Now the problem is one of the problems is Americans have never had delicious shrimp. And so they've been brought up on shrimp that have polyphosphates they have additives and to them that's delicious. And so when they test taste a shrimp, where you don't have the poly phosphate the crunch is not there. The translucency is not there. They're not as fresh. Sometimes that is delicious to them. And our shrimp taste well that doesn't taste right. But I think most people when they eat a truly fresh shrimp, there really is no comparison.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 24:28

As a takeaway before I wrap the program up anything additional that you would want our audience to know about the importance of what you're doing here?

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 24:39

Well, this started back in the late 70s, where they noticed that there were these wild baby shrimp and estuaries and they would collect these say in Ecuador. One of the gentlemen that was one of the originals in my opinion he visited homegrown just three or four days ago, Ernesto Estrada. As a young man, he saw this and he built some dikes and he threw his baby shrimp and the dikes and they grew too big trip. And that was the start of the Ecuadorian shrimp industry. But if you're using wild shrimp, you can't really increase production. So it went to hatchery technology development. And hatchery technology development happened both in the United States and Galveston in Texas, and in Asia. And so as we gained hatchery technology, they then use the wild rootstock. But that became problematic too, because wild rootstock became diseased over over time. And so we went from wild rootstock to domesticated rootstock. And that's where we are now. So it's gone from wild to wild broodstock and hatcheries, domesticated broodstock and hatcheries. And all of that led to a higher plane. And on the farms, it went from those basically, dikes with water with pond, wild animals stone in the pond. And grown to the next step was making a little more sophisticated pond and learning to feed them. So they would we would add feed, and they would do water change better or for worse, that's the way they maintain the quality in the beginning. And that gave them a certain yield. Then in Asia, they learned to make smaller ponds, and not only add feed, they add aerators. With that they had higher yields. And then from there, we learned that with higher and higher yields, the pond bottoms got dirtier. And so we created something called a shrimp toilet, which basically allows you to flush the waste into a sewage line and the sewage line will go into a containment area or an anaerobic digestion area, not back to the environment we learned when you're going intensive, you can't flush it all back to the environment. So we can contain it just like you would a municipal waste plant. And then when disease came, we had to go one more step. And so we started using looking at some indoor facility type things. And so that's where we are at home grown now. Now we're at another level where we're totally contained. We're recycling all of the water. We're not adding any new water, we're recycling it, we're containing all of the ways we're disposing the waste and, and an acceptable environmental way, and producing shrimp that are just as delicious as they were before. So there has been a progression. But it's all been through learning. It's not that Trump farmers were bad guys. They were a knowledgeable people, we all were. But we've learned and today, industrial or, you know, shrimp farmers that are working today, they're staying in business, know a lot more. And they have more sustainable practices than they have in the past. The initial farmers, many of them are gone. They you know, and we're in second generation, we're in the sons that are actually doing it now. And it's a vigorous new generation that are very forward thinking and how they go about this homegrown trip USA is basically CP F's effort to put shrimp in the United States. Because we realize in the United States, there's more trends toward fresh, there's more trends to local, we realize and we've been criticized that all we have done is invest outside the United States and ship product enter the United States. So I'm not sure we're going to be successful and totally balancing the trade deficit. But our intention is to hire Americans grow shrimp in the United States. So there is available, a high quality locally grown American product.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 28:43

Robins Macintosh CEO, home grown shrimp USA hit has been my pleasure to have you on the program today. And I hope that our audience has a lot of takeaway, and they're enthusiastic about eating fresh shrimp because that's what you do.

Robins McIntosh, CEO Homegrown Shrimp, USA: 29:00

Thank you very much. I've appreciated the conversation. And

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 29:04

that is going to wrap our program up. I'm Sam Yates with Yates and Associates Public Relations and Marketing and the Florida Business Forum is our way of filling a void of news, business news in particular that has developed throughout the United States. So the more topics that we can cover, keep those ideas coming, and we'll make sure that we cover that news for you. Until our next episode, the Florida Business Forum Podcast is going to say Have a great day everybody in the Florida Business Forum is dedicated to showcasing Florida businesses and CEOs of all sorts to promote their business or not for profit in the only business forum of its type in Florida. Thanks for tuning in. And remember, have a great day everyone and stay tuned for more business