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From the outside the building looks pretty ordinary.
The white, rectangular steel structure looks as if it would be equally comfortable serving as a farm shop or a shed for young stock. Nevertheless, judging this book by its rather unassuming cover would be doing it — and its mission — a great disservice.
Standing in all its muted glory is the latest jewel in the Cargill Animal Nutrition crown, the newly opened Cargill Animal Nutrition Aqua Research facility, in Elk River, MN. After visiting with Cargill's Ryan Lane, technology deployment manager, Aquaculture, and overseer of the facility, you understand quickly why the motors in the fish tanks aren't the only things about this facility that are creating a buzz.
"The opening of this facility has generated a huge amount of excitement with our customers, suppliers and other partners in the aquaculture industry as well as within Cargill itself," Lane states. "For those of us involved with the aquaculture business, we couldn't be more proud of this facility and the team that's been assembled to run it."
No stranger to aquaculture
While the opening of the Aqua Research Facility represents the beginning of a new era of aqua-feeds development, Cargill is no stranger to aquaculture.
Beginning in the 1990s, Cargill Animal Nutrition formed a team dedicated to aquaculture. For nearly a decade, the team operated largely in the Asian market with additional growth in the United States and Honduras. Cargill also introduced the Cargill LiquaLife products (liquid feeds for larval shrimp).
Momentum for the aquaculture team really began building in the new millennium with the purchase of Agribrands International. With an extensive background in the Latin American shrimp market, the purchase allowed Cargill to establish its foothold in two key market regions. And they wouldn't stop there.
As the marketplace continued to grow at a blazing pace, it became apparent that a reliable, consistent supply of custom-designed feedstuffs would be needed to keep pace.