Our Ocean-Safe Approach
Seafood is always in high demand, which takes a toll on overfished wild populations and oceanic ecosystems. And with populations growing, sustainable yields of wild caught fish are reaching their peak world-wide. Helping to meet the needs of an ever-growing domestic seafood market, while maintaining minimal environmental impact is something that’s important to us. That's why 100% of our Homegrown seafood products are responsibly raised within our on-shore aquaculture systems.
Safeguarding Our Water Resources
To protect our coastal marine environment, our re-circulated hatchery outflow water, is highly purified before being re-integrated into the bay system. Our proprietary seawater filtration system mechanically and biologically filters wastewater eliminating toxins, pathogens, parasites, or other harmful microorganisms, while the dissolved minerals and saline content remain intact.
Reducing Co2 Emissions
As part of our overall sustainability strategy, we work to reduce our carbon emissions by keeping our fisheries land-based and our operational footprint local. Our inland aquaculture farms and nearby processing facilties, means minimal transportation is used in our product lifecycle for a significantly lower environmental impact.
Protein with a Smaller Footprint
Compared to other sources of protein, our fish farms maximize production of healthy, clean protein per acre. For instance, 10-acres of ranch land may yield an average of three 1200-pound beef cows. By contrast, our land-based aquaculture ponds can yield 15,000 pounds of fish on a single acre.
Animal Welfare
Our fish and shrimp are born and responsibly raised in a clean, controlled, and safe environment where fish, swim freely and live a healthy and low-stress lifecycle. Our hatcheries and aquaculture ponds are maintained and monitored 24 hours a day and 7 days per week for oxygen, salinity, disease and other factors that could affect the livelihood of the fish and shrimp.
Recycling Water
Our land-based shrimp and redfish hatcheries continuously recirculate water in a closed-loop system, as it’s tailored through a high-tech filtration process to create the ideal environment for our young fish and shrimp. This type of system allows us to minimize sea-water usage and waste contact with the environment, while removing pathogens, parasites, toxins, algae and harmful microorganisms. And because little to no new water is being introduced into the system, it reduces the risk of introducing diseases.
Traceability
When it comes to food safety and consumer confidence, understanding where your seafood comes from is paramount. For us, traceability is much more than simply listing the country of origin. Because we’re a vertically integrated seafood producer, end-to-end traceability is possible across all our Homegrown farms and products. Not only can we trace every one of our products to the farm or nursery it came from, we can identify the exact pond it was raised in. In the case of our premium red drum and Pacific white shrimp, we go even further. Through specialized genetic testing, we carefully select only the most exceptional broodstock. Having this genetic profile provides us the ability to trace our red drum and shrimp all the way back to the egg, for true farm-to-fork tracebility.