Shrimp-tastic

Shrimp farms don’t exactly come to mind when we think of Ontario growers. Yet in Campbellford, Ontario, just two and a half hours from Toronto, shrimp are being raised for consumption, and by hog farmers, no less. How did this come to be?

“Basically, we were hog farmers before, but prices were down a long time and it just wasn’t worth doing anymore,” explains First Ontario Shrimp co-owner Brad Cocchio. “We had empty barns that weren’t that old, and my dad was on the internet, looking at alternative uses, and found some guys in the States, in Indiana and Maryland, that were growing shrimp in old chicken barns, and thought we could do that with our hog barns. So he went to Maryland and Indiana to see them, and took notes, and we adapted it to our barn.”

Whereas the American shrimp farmers were