MOUNT ENTERPRISE, Texas — Several years ago, changes in the way the poultry industry operates meant some broiler producers couldn't afford the cost of doing business.
The result of the company-mandated changes was hundreds of empty chicken houses dotting the East Texas landscape. A group of innovators have found a way to breathe new life, and a new agribusiness venture, into those empty structures.
But instead of feathers, their crop has fins.
Enter East Texas Tilapia, a relatively new enterprise, raising what's quickly becoming the most popular seafood option in restaurants and on dinner tables around the country. Farming fish, or aquaculture, isn't a new enterprise by any stretch of the imagination. But Van Vaught and his partners, Jim Reed and Don Walker, both of Shelbyville, are coming at the venture in a whole new way.
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