Anna Marie Seafood

“You need technology to create quality,” says Lance Nacio, a 38-year-old Cajun and wild shrimp fisherman from Terrebonne Bay, Louisiana. Darlene Wolnik, who works for a public market organization called marketumbrella.org that helps food producers like Lance do direct marketing in the region, agrees, “Lance is the most innovative shrimper we’re working with.”

While many of his fellow shrimpers have been decimated by global competition, rising fuel and boat repair costs, diminished domestic catches, and destructive hurricanes (Katrina alone wiped out more than half of the Louisiana shrimp fleet), Lance has succeeded by applying sheer intelligence to the challenge of delivering freshness to the consumer.

A turning point came when he put a freezer on board his boat—“we can give consumers something that is as close to straight out of the water as possible.” The improvement in taste, compared to the typical dockside freezing, was staggering. “The shrimp taste like they were never frozen. And the flash freezing also preserves the kaleidoscopic colors of the shrimp. The quality is just over the top. It’s tremendous how good they look when they’re thawed back.”

Lance also became inventive to improve his environmental performance. He adopted nets with a wider mesh and equipped them with modified turtle excluder devices (TEDs) to reduce by 60-70% the bycatch of cownose rays, catfish, and crabs. The catch with each dip of the net is smaller, but so is the work required to physically remove the bycatch. Additionally, he fishes at night, when the shrimp are feeding nearer the surface.

Lance’s innovations have been increasingly recognized by industry and conservation organizations alike. The Ocean Conservancy featured Lance in their winter 2008 magazine. “The way I look at it, I want to make a future at what I’m doing. I want there to be shrimp for my children and future generations. Like my father and grandfather, who targeted specific species, I’m trying only to catch shrimp.”