Firm sees big future in shrimp
By Sean Hao
Advertiser Staff Writer
Moana Technologies LLC has big plans for the shrimp industry.
Until recently, the 'Aiea-based company kept a low profile as it conducted research into breeding larger, healthier shrimp. That's changing with construction starting on five buildings worth $750,000 on its 11-acre facility at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority in Kona on the Big Island.
Officials for the privately owned company said they are spending $10 million developing a new species of Asian black tiger shrimp. Raised mainly in Asia, black tiger shrimp, named for their black bands, are an increasingly popular product for the aquaculture industry, said Yuan Wang, president for Moana.
Most black tiger shrimp are raised from parents captured in the wild. Moana wants to create a genetically superior Asian black tiger that is larger and more immune to disease, Wang said.
"We do have hopes and dreams that we will be able to pioneer this field," Wang said. "This is a project that is not very common in the world."
The Oceanic Institute on O'ahu helped domesticate another shrimp species for aquaculture use — the Pacific white shrimp — in the 1980s and 1990s. Accomplishing a similar feat with the black tiger will take five to seven years, Wang said. The company has about 20 employees and plans to double its work force within 18 months.
If successful, Moana would sell the shrimp to commercial farmers who could breed more shrimp for consumer sale. Profitability would probably take another three to four years years. Wang would not disclose the project's financial backers.
It's clear that the market for shrimp is anything but small. The company is targeting a worldwide shrimp market estimated at $3 billion. During 2002, shrimp consumption in the United States topped tuna for the first time, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Americans ate an average 3.4 pounds a shrimp per person, compared to 2.9 pounds of tuna.
Shaun Moss, manager of Oceanic Institute's shrimp program, said concerns about environmental damage caused by dragging the ocean floor for shrimp in the wild and the viability of wild shrimp populations are driving researchers to develop genetically-altered shrimp. Such shrimp can be more efficiently grown in a controlled environment, he said.
Moss said Moana's plan to invest in domesticating the Asian tiger is a significant development for the state's aquaculture industry.
"If that's really what they're spending, that's a significant amount more than what other people in Hawai'i have invested," he said.
Aquaculture is a $34 million industry in Hawai'i, according to the state Department of Agriculture. About $22 million of that comes from commercial sales and the rest from research and technology development. By 2007, the state estimates that commercial sales will rise to $32 million.
The scale of Moana's operation has a least one local company concerned.
Jim Wyban, president of High Health Aquaculture Inc., which is located near Moana, has mixed feelings about a competing entry into the market. Wyban said he already raises domesticated white and tiger shrimp for sale to farmers who breed commercial shrimp.
"Shrimp breeding is an idea who's time has come," said Wyban, who left Oceanic Institute to found High Health Aquaculture in 1992. "But that's little consolation.
"It's somewhat intimidating to see a competitor putting up those buildings and doing it right up the road."
