TransparentSea Farm

11/19/2024

When we talk about our purpose and mission for TransparentSea, we don’t take our existence and role in this industry lightly. It’s not like we are making up shrimp farming from scratch, and it’s not like we will replace all other farmers…

Steve just returned from a trip to visit farms and feed mills in Vietnam, and then nutritionists, global business leaders and investors in Singapore. While phasing out the pilot and getting ready to commercialize, we joined the world’s foremost aquaculture business accelerator .blue Through Hatch’s team and the other company leaders, he spent dozens of hours learning how to be a better farmer, communicator, fundraiser and leader.

Just thought we’d share some photos, and the feeling of gratitude from trip. Traditional shrimp farming might have its issues at places and times, but it is rich in innovative problem solvers and good farmers. Though we aim to redefine shrimp farming, advance its efficiency and reduce its footprint dramatically, we acknowledge all the work and advancements that have come before us.

10/09/2024

That’s a wrap on our proof of concept farm in Downey. As Swiss army CEO, I just cleaned the toilets for the last time and and I pressure washed the place one last time.

From start to finish, that was the hardest 5 years of my professional life, but I’ve had a good life so no pity parties. Like any small business, we caught few breaks, and had mostly major challenges, but overall I’m starting to accept that we succeeded. We went from 0 to almost 8,000 followers on here totally organically, with many of you being chefs, customers or fans we can’t reach yet. We found out that even with insanely high urban costs and California city regulatory nonsense, this can be economically viable. We took our water recycling rate to 99.8% and learned how to improve our system, process and quality control. We got to put together a team (a few times), protocols and really see where we can improve. We appeared in magazines including the Economist, radio shows including NPR-KCRW and have a YouTube video made by that had over 4.5 MILLION views. We left the space wayyyy better than we found it. We’ve got a pile of interested investors and aspiring farmers who want to copy us. While the next project is set to resurface in 2025, we are positioned to drop costs by almost half at the next facility and really see where this can go. Can we give mangroves a real break, keep consumers healthier and more confident in their purchases, and work on become a cost effective option for traditional outdoor shrimp farming? Time will tell.

I’m grateful for my team members and all of our customers over the 3 plus years of sales. In hindsight, this probably should have failed quickly, but because you guys kept on buying, we had to keep growing them. Now we have to take it to the next level and see if we can put a dent in a problematic food production industry. Ta Ta for now, and keep the weird shrimp content coming.

09/02/2024

🎭 🦐 🌎
When: This Wednesday September 4th @ 7pm
Where: Long Beach Arts Theatre on 4th St
Why: Because it’s hump day on a short week and our food systems are jacked up. Come find hope or ask questions.
What: Please join Kitchen Lingo Books & The Art Theater for a an advanced screening and panel discussion of NYTimes Ruth Reichl’s documentary, Food And Country.

The film is a dive into the flaws in the foundation of the American food system, and the independent producers who are navigating those flaws by working outside of the system to produce sustainable, healthy food. After the screening we invite you to say for a panel discussion with some local chefs and food producers for whom this topic is a very real subject.

I will be on the panel after the film. We love this little retro theater and have lived a couple blocks away for 3 years. Can’t think of a better way to spend my last week as a resident of Long Beach. Come by! Tickets in story and online via

08/15/2024

We’ve always been brutally honest and transparent about what’s going on, so why stop now? Despite taking down our proof of concept systems this month and moving out of Downey, I’m very excited about where we are headed professionally, personally and financially.

I’m also excited to take a break from living on my phone handling alarms, harvests, and social media. It’s been an awesome tool for staying in touch with you all, but for now it’s time to reset. We’ll be back soon, but in the meantime please email us through the website with any questions and sign up for the newsletter via the website. If anyone is interested in renting space in Downey or hearing about investment opportunities, please reach out! I won’t be answering IG DMs for a couple of weeks.

05/15/2024

On May 1st, the most epic dinner went down at our farm, and captured it masterfully.

Since I’m only allowed 10, this is a small taste. Tag yo selves. Insane how smooth and collaborative it was thanks to

04/22/2024

Earth Day frustrates me. I’ll say it. 😡 😮

Posts on Earth day get the least engagement. It’s a Monday, times are not the most certain… honestly don’t tell me about things I can’t change or stories that give me hope but no clear action to take. Am I right? Or am I just a cynic?

Now, to clarify: I love that Earth Day exists, and I’ll spend too much time today liking posts of other change-making colleagues, hoping their solutions can be scaled and not fall into the law of unintended consequences (solve a problem and create another). My issue is that every day needs to be Earth Day if we’re going to get some climate related issues corrected before this planet is a bald, drowning fireball.

These images are from a really short and readable article on Earth.org. Really nice dinner conversation fodder. Mangroves are forests that occupy a tiny fraction of the Earth’s crust and sequester and store carbon better than any other terrestrial ecosystem, often wayyyy better. We’ve exterminated around 50% since 1980 via construction, rice and shrimp farming.

At TransparentSea, we think it’s past time to find a way to regenerate the mangroves. One way we see is to develop a low-impact, place it anywhere farming system. Please support our mission by purchasing prawns, supporting our restaurants who name us on the menu, and maybe coming to the Farm Dinner next Wednesday night, (if you can get one of the last seats). The dinner includes a farm tour, drinks, and 8 courses. If nothing else, keep following as we continue to work on our expansion aimed at increasing supply, reach and reducing costs. When we can compete, we know we can scale and then alleviate some pressure that traditional shrimp farmers have placed on the mangroves, while giving them a more steady and secure farming method. (PSA: we are not against all traditional shrimp farmers, but unfortunately have to pick a lane. Character limits, attention spans and such.)

04/18/2024

A thank you to 💜

As one of our oldest and most steady customers, Gjelina’s team was interested as soon as I pitched them the mission and they tasted the product. In 2021 and came to the farm right away to see what this indoor farming nonsense is all about! Then they set up a training, and still to this day have staff they tell our story flawlessly at the table side! Their team’s dedication to sourcing and not pushing farmers around or giving us a hard time when we have shortages is second to none. Through a pandemic no less, and even when their NYC venture caught fire as it was opening. They could have subbed cheaper things, but they doubled down and kept buying, eventually rebuilding in NYC! Here’s looking at you and

When in Venice, please consider patronage to a group that puts its money where its mouth is, and quietly always has. If there’s a farmer they can support to bring about health, environmental or social improvements, they investigate it right away and support it. Oh and if that wasn’t enough, multiple customers and two of our employees have told us that Chef Juan’s wood fired prawns are “the best effing shrimp I’ve ever tasted.”

Come try their work, alongside and on May 1st at the farm! A few tickets left in our bio.

04/12/2024

The moment you didn’t know that you’ve all been waiting for… We’re finally inviting you to our low-impact farm for a collaborative open house and dinner event with some of our friends and longest standing customers. It’s a tour and an 8-course menu focusing partly on Tank to Table dishes as well as other produce sourced from our local SoCal community! (Spoiler: We’ll even have a dish highlighting our friends )

Here’s THE LINEUP…2 courses each by:




Wine included but producer TBD.

May 1. One seating. Several shrimp puns. Be there or be square! Limited number of tickets.

Eventbrite Link in our bio under the “InstaBio” section. Or email [email protected].
Blue prawn art by . Event coordination by ❤️ 🍤 🦐

04/08/2024

I don’t typically share broad-stroke news because the seafood industry has good players and bad ones, like many others. Overall, we should be eating more seafood, not less. That said, y’all keep sending me these articles!

Decades ago, Ecuador struggled with disease, antibiotic use allegations and more. Years ago, it was Thailand. Now the largest exporter of shrimp over the past few years, India is in the hot seat for various allegations and reports of human rights violations, environmental destruction and contamination of products beyond the regular dips and preservatives.

There are a lot of hard working people relying on shrimp farming (and fishing) for their livelihood, so this is a topic we don’t talk about lightly. However, this can’t stop us from admitting that our system of procurement of 🦐 is suspicious and murky at best, and not sustainable for our health or our 🌎. The system is broken and it needs to change. Oh… and buying the cheapest shrimp you can find without being a discerning customer… that is the largest force driving this unsustainable industry. As consumers, don’t be afraid to ask questions and try to show purveyors that we care how things are raised, caught and handled. If you do, solutions and better products will eventually emerge. You will demand it.

03/27/2024

🚨 Important Announcement! We will not be attending the Santa Monica Farmer’s market on Wednesdays for the rest of March and probably the month of April. If you are interested in getting a retail delivery within Los Angeles, please order at least 3 pounds and DM or send a message through the website (preferred). Spread the word if you see someone looking for us at the market! 🙏

We are still producing sweet, clean low-impact 🦐 in Downey, but need to focus on our expansion plans with everything we’ve got. We have big plans upcoming but really must focus our limited resources to make them a reality. In the meantime, please reach out! 2025 should be an amazing year of growth for us, but consider us a bit of a 🐛 before it turns 🦋. 😜

Thank you all for your support, and do continue to support our restaurant partners! -Steve

02/24/2024

Ahh Colossal and Jumbo Prawns… where art thou? 😢 Despite starting this business in a historically inflationary and volatile time in an old building that isn’t well suited for the use, our single biggest challenge has been unsteady supply of high quality seedstock, or baby prawns. This trouble hit us especially hard last September through December. They either don’t arrive, arrive in poor health, or with sub par genetics. While the farm is stocked again with Larges and below, we want to apologize for our intermittent attendance at the farmers market, and online inventory the past couple of weeks. To our restaurants, we should start having Jumbos again around March 4th or 8th. For the future of this mission, we’ve been working for 10 months to find the next site, and are getting close to starting work on our own hatchery and Farm #2 , just to supply our farm/s.

09/11/2023

You might not know this, but we have quietly been available for nationwide delivery for some weeks on E-Fish’s website that promotes clean, responsible and fresh seafood, particularly focused on small businesses. We harvest and pack every Thursday for delivery in the US on Friday.

While the bulk of our weekly sales go to local restaurants and one farmers market, we’d be happy to harvest just for you this week. (I suggest the 4 # pack to get the best value). Since they’ve never been preserved or frozen, you can just freeze some upon arrival!

Please check out E-Fish for our sustainable prawns and other fresh products.

09/01/2023

Our Founder & CEO Steve Sutton comes together with Chef Rob, owner of Liv's on 2nd, to share one of their favorite recipes; Garlic Shrimp.

It's a simple yet highly delicious dish that you can try on your own at home.

Comment on what your favorite recipe is, or what you'd like to see next!

Grab some of our premium prawns and try this recipe at home! https://app.barn2door.com/transparentseafarm/all
https://youtu.be/JhgPxRkPggc

Our founder & CEO Steve Sutton comes together with Chef Rob, owner of Liv's on 2nd, to share one of their favorite recipes; Garlic Shrimp. It's a simple yet ...

08/01/2023

Come one come all to the this Wednesday!

Preorder your prawns today on our website, or just stop by and snag some! Deadline to preorder is Tuesday (tomorrow) before noon.

Owner & founder Steve Sutton will be there in the flesh to answer any shrimpy questions you might have for him 🙌

07/28/2023

Transparency is key 🦐

Here’s the team that brings you TransparentSea(food) on a regular basis (plus or minus a couple teammates). It’s nice to know where and who your food comes from, wouldn’t you say so?

07/25/2023

Transparency is key! No more mystery food; we deserve to know where our food comes from 🤘🦐🤘

07/19/2023

Shrimpy FAQ: (How) can you eat the whole prawn??

The entire prawn is edible. Depending on the prawn size, cooking method and personal preference, you might choose to peel and eat only the tail and use the head for stocks or soups, or eat the whole thing. For example, the popcorns, larges, XL and especially soft-shell are our recommended best sizes for whole-eating, while preferred cooking methods are grilled, rolled in oil and broiled, or lightly breaded in flour and fried. How do I eat them, you ask? Let's say you've decided to grill your prawns... There are only two sharp parts to the prawn, the tip of the head or rostrum being the one you most want to be careful of. You may cut or snap this off, or just carefully eat it as I usually do. Another option, especially on the larger sizes is to remove the carapace, or what I will call the "helmet."  I do this by placing my thumb alongside and parallel to the head and lifting up from the bottom. (We'll make a video on it). Then I lift up and remove just the helmet, leaving behind the flavor bomb of fats and oils in the head. As for the tail and the legs? Those are some of my favorite parts as long as the chef has exposed them to some sort of oil and high heat so that they turn crispy!

07/16/2023

Doesn’t get much fresher than this! In addition to enjoying our products across Southern California at select restaurants, you are able to order on our website and pick up your order at the following locations:

🦪 Liv’s Oyster Bar in Long Beach

🦐 Santa Monica Farmer’s Market

📍 TransparentSea Farms in Downey, California!