
Artificial shrimps could change the world - shartshooter
https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/02/08/how-artificial-shrimps-could-change-the-world
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TaylorAlexander
Hey that’s neat! I’d love to see cleaner and more sustainably made “brewery
crafted shrimp” than abusive and destructive industries that serve products
grown on unclean conditions.

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9nGQluzmnq3M
Article without paywall: [https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-
drink/shrimps-p...](https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-
drink/shrimps-prawns-climate-change-mangroves-1612914)

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ttul
They may cost $5,000/kg today, but obviously if the product tastes good, the
multi-billion-dollar market will rapidly provide capital for scaling out unit
costs.

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rladd
True only for things that can be scaled.

I don’t know what’s in this shrimp tissue culture medium but mammalian cell
medium typically requires fetal calf serum.

You can’t arbitrarily scale production of that.

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lscharen
Somewhat related is the aquaculture company Natural Shrimp, Inc (SHMP) in
Texas.

The claim to have improved water treatment methods that allow a much higher
density of shrimp to be grown without disease killing them off.

I’ve been watching the company for about a year, and they are still squarely
in the “show me” stage.

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raattgift
Wonderful, ask them if they can also do away with
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyestalk_ablation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyestalk_ablation)
("in almost every marine shrimp maturation or reproduction facility in the
world") or whether the denser conditions mean blinder shrimp.

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lscharen
That’s a good question.

According to their public documents, they plan to source shrimp larve from Sea
Products Development, LLC, which is also located in Texas.

Nothing on the SPD site contains any direct information on this issue, other
than generic SPG-speak.

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SideburnsOfDoom
tl;dr it's "artificial" in the sense that it's cultured animal tissue

> The process involves propagating shrimp cells in a nutrient-rich solution.
> Sriram likens it to a brewery, disdaining the phrase “lab-grown”.

