A shrimp producer in the Comonwealth of the Northern Marianas says it aims to be exporting almost 500 kilogrammes of chilled shrimp to the United States every week by the end of the year.
The operations manager for Saipan Aquaculture, a five year old business with a 6-thousand square metre farm, says it's been sending almost a hundred kilogrammes a week to Seattle for distribution throughout the US since June.
Rommel Catalma says the company is one of only a very few throughout the world selling fresh, not frozen, shrimp.
"Frozen shrimp most of the time are coming from Asian countries and can be as old as one year old or at most two years old because that's the shelf life for frozen shrimp. We look at ourselves as a boutique shrimp like a Prada as against an ordinary Levis for example. We want to separate ourselves from the competition by bringing the highest quality."
Rommel Catalma says he believes aquaculture is on the way to replacing the collapsed garment industry as an economic driver.
