For those of you who didn't know about Blue Oasis, that's the shrimp farm that opened in North Las Vegas in the summer of 2011. The facility took advantage of advances in recycling technologies to mount a campaign against our dependence on foreign seafood, with shrimp originating primarily from Southeast Asia and China and coming, we understand, not just frozen but also injected with preservatives.
Las Vegas visitors and locals together collectively consume some 22 million pounds of shrimp a year -- that's 60000 pounds every day -- which is almost as much as in the whole United States and enough to make us the shrimp-eating capital of the known world, bar none, on one level it seemed that there could be no better place to set up a dedicated shrimp-production facility, although the concept of a fish farm in the desert was hard to reconcile.
Still, local media outlets, including this one, were enthusiastic and supportive of the venture on several grounds, including for diversifying the local economy, embracing sustainable practices, providing employment during the worst of the recession, and for just daring to fly in the face of orthodoxy, something that Las Vegas can definitely relate to.
It seemed that all was going great, with a revisit by the R-J in January, 2011 to the 30,000-square-foot, $5 million facility reporting on a healthy first shrimp harvest and a "robust first few months" serving organic shrimp to a list of 17 restaurants on the Strip, with a client list including the likes of Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, and Mario Batali. Blue Oasis shrimp were also beginning to penetrate the local retail market and was supplying long-running traditional butcher, Larry's Great Western Meats, with a deal in the works with Albertson's supermarket chain.
Upon initial investigation, it appeared all was well, with the Blue Oasis Pure Shrimp website still displaying. However, the blog hadn't had a new entry added since January 2012, when it was reported that the company had won an award for innovation. We tried the various phone numbers listed, only to find they had all been disconnected, so then we contacted a couple of the restaurants listed on the website as clients.
It's generally the kitchen that makes food orders and chefs are tricky to hold of, either because they're not there, or when they are there, they're overseeing a busy kitchen and don't have time to take calls. Still, after drawing a couple of blanks, we got hold of a helpful chef at Emeril Lagasse's New Orleans Fish House at MGM Grand, who confirmed that he was pretty sure Blue Oasis was no more and that this restaurant for one was no longer ordering from them. Ditto the Crab Shack, a former LVA Local Corner, which is also listed among the clients but confirmed that all their shrimp is shipped in live from the East Coast.
Finally, we tried Larry's Great Western Meats, and the very helpful butcher we spoke with said he was pretty sure Blue Oasis closed around four or five months ago, much to his regret. He described the shrimp as having such good flavor they even tasted great raw, and that it had been wonderful to be able to offer fresh, farm-raised, preservative-free shrimp, but that now they had been forced to return to selling the frozen variety once more.
Having come in with a bang amid a rash of media attention, both local and national, Blue Oasis Fresh Shrimp seems to have quietly disappeared off the map. If anyone knows any more details about the story than we do, please drop us a line and we'll post an "Update" to this answer.
