Winter Wishes for a Welfare-Focused Future

Season’s greetings from Shrimp Welfare Project!

Welcome to our unofficial Shrimp Welfare Holiday Party! ❄️ Let me show you around. 

The food and drinks are in the kitchen, the highlights reel of shrimp welfare wins is playing in the living room by the tree, and our 2025 Corporate Impact Metrics can be found framed proudly in the study (next to the fireplace where chestnuts are roasting). Oh, and I simply must introduce you to our newest corporate partners who are leading the industry towards higher welfare and sustainable aquaculture. 

Before you head home for the holidays: Shrimp Welfare Project is currently accepting Expressions of Interest for potential roles on the team. If you’re interested in helping us improve the lives of billions of shrimps in 2026, scroll to the end of this newsletter to learn more!

See you next year!

Robin | Communications Lead

As 2025 comes to an end, we’re feeling festive and reflective. Amid New Year’s resolutions and Spotify Wrapped posts (or should I say, Shrimpify Wrapped?), we’re celebrating some major achievements this year, including:

📈 Growing the Humane Slaughter Initiative to 28 corporate partnerships, including 12 new MOUs with producers

🦐 Installing 7 new stunners and providing hands-on technical support across 15 field visits

🌏 Working on the ground with 44 producers, including smallholder farms, to gather data and refine shrimp welfare protocols

We also grew our terrific team to 10 full-time employees, and became more interconnected than ever as we focus on data-driven research, hands-on implementation, and practical industry support in all we do.

🎥 Along the way, shrimp welfare reached new audiences, thanks to breakthrough media moments and major industry conferences.

As everyone compares their recaps and wrapped playlists, we’re celebrating a different kind of chart-topper: a year when smarter standards, stronger partnerships, and enthusiastic supporters helped give billions of shrimps a better life.

We’re excited to share that the Nephrops Stunning and Tailing Prototype – which we helped fund – has just won the first-ever Catch Welfare Innovation Award at the Catch Welfare Platform’s annual conference in IJmuiden, the Netherlands!

Led by our partners at Fisheries Innovation & Sustainability (FIS) and backed by a broad industry coalition, this machine automatically stuns wild-caught nephrops and removes their tails – a task that is typically done by hand and is physically demanding for deck crew.

🦐 Shrimp Welfare Project was recognised during the event as the only non-commercial NGO funder of the project, and we are proud to support this innovative technology alongside trade group NGOs and industry partners.

After successful sea trials aboard the Golden Ray, the team is now moving into the next phase: refining the machine for full-capacity use and assessing its economic impact so more trawlers can adopt humane slaughter equipment. It’s a powerful proof-of-concept for better animal welfare, safer working conditions, and improved efficiency.

To improve the welfare of millions of farmed shrimps for years to come, Shrimp Welfare Project has partnered with C.P. Viet Nam and Westbridge Food Group!

We are granting an electrical stunner to C.P. Viet Nam — part of CPF, one of the world’s top shrimp producers — to help render shrimps unconscious during the harvesting process. 

In a landmark commitment, C.P. Viet Nam will stun 100% of its L. vannamei shrimps harvested for the UK market from January 1, 2026.

As part of the collaboration, Westbridge Food Group — an international supplier to major supermarket chains — has agreed to prioritise the purchase of stunned shrimps from C.P. Viet Nam.

“At Westbridge Foods, we’re committed to sourcing responsibly and driving progress across our global supply chains. Partnering with C.P. Viet Nam and Shrimp Welfare Project marks an important step forward in improving welfare standards in aquaculture. This is part of our wider commitment to ensuring sustainability and animal welfare progress for the benefit of our retail partners and consumers.”
— Carl Cooper, Responsible Sourcing Manager, Westbridge Foods

In the past month, we attended:

• Catch Welfare Platform Conference, IJmuiden, the Netherlands (November 19)

• EA Connect, virtual (December 5 → December 7)

• EAGx Amsterdam, the Netherlands (December 12 → December 14)

In the next few months, we look forward to attending:

• AVA Summit, Buenos Aires, Argentina (January 30 → February 1)

• Sentient Futures Summit, Bay Area, California (February 6 → February 8)

• World Seafood Congress, Chennai, India (February 9 → February 11)

This month’s media highlights:

• International Shrimpact Week: FarmKind’s International Shrimpact Day™ campaign rallied ~30 Substack writers to fundraise for Shrimp Welfare Project, showcasing shrimp welfare as one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce animal suffering ➜ Check it out

• Our path to helping more shrimps: In an EA Forum essay on marginal funding opportunities, Shrimp Welfare Project’s Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Aaron Boddy sketches how ambitious projects could grow our (Shr)Impact from 4.5 billion to 100 billion shrimps helped per year as soon as 2030 ➜ Read how here

• Humane slaughter tech: In this Herald Scotland interview, Ace Aquatec’s CEO highlights how humane slaughter technologies – backed by partners like Shrimp Welfare Project – are reshaping global aquaculture ➜ Read the article

• Founder story (en español): On the podcast Innovadores Sin Filtro, Andrés Jiménez Zorrilla recounts his journey from finance to founding Shrimp Welfare Project ➜Watch the episode

If you want to learn more about shrimp welfare and the shrimp farming industry:

• Aquatic animal welfare goes mainstream: The Fish Site reports on how industry recognition of fish (and shrimp) welfare is growing fast, with welfare standards becoming central to sustainable aquaculture strategies ➜ See what they're saying

• Europe’s farmed shrimp imports are expanding, and Shrimp Insights breaks down the ~800 companies in the EU/UK importer landscape, highlighting the Top 25 drivers (about 35-45% of total import value) in the shrimp supply chain ➜ Read the analysis

Opportunities in aquatic animal welfare:

• Want to help scale shrimp welfare in 2026? Shrimp Welfare Project is currently accepting Expressions of Interest for a handful of potential roles on the team.

• • We’re not currently committed to hiring for all 6 of these roles, but we wanted to first understand which positions people are most excited about. 

  • If you’re interested, fill out this Google Form by January 11.

  • Questions? Email info@shrimpwelfareproject.org

• Research Proposals - Arthropoda Foundation - EOIs due January 15