America’s Biggest Private Company Reveals Its Plan To Get Even Bigger

Thirty miles outside Minneapolis, the only structures interrupting miles of waist-high corn are a few long buildings covered in white siding. Those structures belong to Cargill—the $115 billion-in-sales agricultural giant that has topped Forbes’ list of America's largest private companies for 28 of the past 30 years—and they house one of Cargill’s most important projects.  

Stretched out along the interior of each building are rows of tanks filled with brackish gray water—and either tilapia or shrimp. Cargill is studying the best way to feed and raise seafood, and the various pools test different conditions, like the creatures' nutritional requirements at different water temperature and their appetite for insects.

In recent years, Cargill has become a major supplier of fish feed to salmon, tilapia and shrimp farmers around the world. Now it is considering whether it should start its own farms, and these experiments in Elk River, Minnesota, are all about creating viable and profitable farms. “We have an opportunity to develop a sustainable way of making food where we can compete with pizza,” says Einar Wathne, Cargill’s head of seafood.  

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Forbes