The Time Capsule | Roy Marshall

A year ago I got to the S’s on my bucket list and tried sap, tapping a dozen black walnut trees. It was fun and the syrup’s great, but would a tough way to make a living.

Shrimp, next on my list, promised real profit. The internet tells us a lot of Iowans have gone into the business. An abandoned school building in Winneshiek County became the Sherlock Shrimp Farm. Triple M Shrimp near Rockwell City has an informative web page. Northern Iowa Shrimp in Cedar Falls occupies a former warehouse. Iowa Shrimp Farms in Sigourney is scheduled to go into production this month. Shrimp 59 in Holstein claims to have the finest shrimp you’ll ever taste, and Rehberg Farms in Linn County raises Hampshire hogs as well as shrimp.

Sherill Ryan, founder of Sherlock Shrimp, is quoted in a news article as saying tanks in her tiered system can each handle 150,000 shrimp. Having a consultant during the set-up phase was, she said, a key to success and she’d be glad to help others. She seemed a good one to call, but her phone has been disconnected. An inquiry revealed she closed a few months ago and has since left Iowa.

Shrimp 59 offers a consulting service, so I tried them. Similar result. Holstein’s city clerk said they’d gone under early last year. Next call was to Rehberg Shrimp & Pork. The Rehbergs are getting out of shrimp and didn’t really care to talk about it.

Brent Maguire can’t speak for others, but said the problem he couldn’t overcome was marketing. Triple M Shrimp, with rows of 4,000 gallon tanks capable of producing 600 pounds per month, was a venture of two brothers who farm in Calhoun County (the third “M” is in memory of their father, who died in 2008.) They opened in the spring of 2015 and shut down last fall.

The Maguires listened to experts from universities and elsewhere, studied the process and equipment and took a costly plunge. Shrimp farmers deal with water quality, genetics, humidity, saltwater issues and shrimp mortality; all of which Triple M learned to cope with. They raised several crops and would have been successful, Maguire assured me, if there’d been a market.

“We couldn’t compete with China,” he said. Maguire described seafood that was fresh, clean, far tastier and free of the chemicals, contaminants and carcinogens that have been found in shrimp imported from largely unregulated regions of Asia. His production cost, though, was $12 to $14 per pound and at the price he had to charge there weren’t many buyers.

I did more reading. Maguire’s cost of production compares favorably with others who raise shrimp in indoor tanks. New York and Chicago and Washington, D.C. have an abundance of consumers glad to pay $20 or more per pound for fresh, top-of-the-line seafood. Iowa buyers are reluctant, something a few investors seem to have found out the hard way.

Walnut sap-to-syrup may not be profitable, but I can get you in the business for about ten bucks.

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.