2013... It doesn't seem possible. It isn't that I didn't expect it to come, and it wasn't like time flew by. But things have changed so much in the last year. A couple of moves after having been in one place for over 22 years. But change is a constant in our lives. Have you heard friends or family members, or even yourself say "I don't deal well with change" or something similar?
If we stop and think about it change is a constant in our lives. Something is always changing. Could be small things that we don't even recognize but change is still there. Sometimes it is the big things and it is stressful but we somehow manage to make it through those changes. It's a matter of how we choose to deal with them. I've seen people that get so upset when they know a change is coming that they already have themselves convinced they aren't going to be able to handle it, that when the change happens, even if it ends up being small that they have themselves convinced that it was life altering.
I bring this up for the fact that starting a business is a fairly large change. Well, a constant, non-stop series of changes. Your business plan as you write it continually changes. The location you would really like initially will more than likely change for one reason or another. The original idea and how you see it will start to change once you start looking at things in detail. For me, we are in an area where water is pretty tight. So although I will actually be running a business where I will be utilizing a sustainable practice in saving water, trying to find the land that I will be able to use the water I need is proving difficult. And then try to tell someone in this area that finding agriculture land is difficult. They will look at you with total confusion until you tell them that finding appropriate agriculture land that is on the market is the problem. Then throw the water and utilities issues on top of that. But that all comes back to when you do find that ideal piece of property, when you do start looking into it, you have to prepare yourself for change. In short, preparing for a new business is a constant series of changes.
I encourage anyone and everyone who has the desire to open and run a business to pursue it. But know going into the process that if you are not great at coping with change, it is not going to be a good move. Be prepared for those people around you (not the yes people who are there to tell you how great everything is, but the people who are really going to make it work for you) to tell you the honest down to goodness truth, and you are going to be changing things constantly. Be prepared for your research to constantly be contradicting itself. Change...
But it's a new year. Make 2013 the year where you pursue what is going to make your life yours. It is a risk. How much of a risk are you willing to take? Your life is in your hands, it is your destiny, not anyone else's Don't go into it blindly. Go into 2014 saying I gave it my best, or I cant believe I am still researching this.
I wish you all the best in 2013. Please be safe as well as those you are spending your life with.
Scott
Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Sustainability...are people sick of hearing about it?
Depending on who you ask, the word sustainability is either going to cause great joy or it is going create an automatic shut down.
For those who it gives complete and udder joy to a large number of them see the world changing, and all mankind will be saved. There is the group that get enjoyment from the fact that they may have taken that wooden pallet and created something new. It may be something as simple as the mom who took a couple of empty plastic bottles and did something creative with her kids. That all falls under sustainability.
Then there are the people who automatically go into complete shutdown mode when they hear the same word. Sustainability to them brings up thoughts of people tying themselves to trees and the most extreme images they can think of.
I am not going to say the last group is wrong in their thinking for the simple fact that when the "green" movement first started in the 70's, there were a few things that when brought up pretty much made the majority of the world say "what?" Now, unfortunately, those same people can't let go of what happened almost 40+ years ago to see that things have changed. At the same time, the idea of having 100% sustainability throughout the world, as great as it would be is not a practical or realistic goal. So when those people who have a hard time trying to buy into the moderate thought of sustainability hear the extreme view, all they hear is what they have been believing for almost 50 years now.
With all of that said, Premier Rocky Mountain Prawn is a more moderate company with sustainability. What I mean by that is we do take sustainability seriously. However, we are not going to try to knock you over to win you to our side. We will introduce you to what we are doing and why we are doing it, and hope you will walk away with a little more awareness.
Our short term goal will be to reach an 85% sustainability goal in 3 years. Remember I said "goal". That doesn't mean it's just lip service and we are just saying that. It does mean that we will do our best to achieve that goal. However if we don't achieve 85%, we would rather not have people knocking on our door telling us we only reached 70%, and asking why didn't we hit 85%? It's called a goal for that reason. It's something you strive for. So three years from the day we open the doors, if we aren't at 85%, please forgive our slackness, there might be somethings that came up. If someone would like to donate the cash for solar, we can be there a lot quicker....
So remember, everyone is going to have their feelings on sustainability. Respect them and we all might get a little further in the ultimate goal.
Scott
For those who it gives complete and udder joy to a large number of them see the world changing, and all mankind will be saved. There is the group that get enjoyment from the fact that they may have taken that wooden pallet and created something new. It may be something as simple as the mom who took a couple of empty plastic bottles and did something creative with her kids. That all falls under sustainability.
Then there are the people who automatically go into complete shutdown mode when they hear the same word. Sustainability to them brings up thoughts of people tying themselves to trees and the most extreme images they can think of.
I am not going to say the last group is wrong in their thinking for the simple fact that when the "green" movement first started in the 70's, there were a few things that when brought up pretty much made the majority of the world say "what?" Now, unfortunately, those same people can't let go of what happened almost 40+ years ago to see that things have changed. At the same time, the idea of having 100% sustainability throughout the world, as great as it would be is not a practical or realistic goal. So when those people who have a hard time trying to buy into the moderate thought of sustainability hear the extreme view, all they hear is what they have been believing for almost 50 years now.
With all of that said, Premier Rocky Mountain Prawn is a more moderate company with sustainability. What I mean by that is we do take sustainability seriously. However, we are not going to try to knock you over to win you to our side. We will introduce you to what we are doing and why we are doing it, and hope you will walk away with a little more awareness.
Our short term goal will be to reach an 85% sustainability goal in 3 years. Remember I said "goal". That doesn't mean it's just lip service and we are just saying that. It does mean that we will do our best to achieve that goal. However if we don't achieve 85%, we would rather not have people knocking on our door telling us we only reached 70%, and asking why didn't we hit 85%? It's called a goal for that reason. It's something you strive for. So three years from the day we open the doors, if we aren't at 85%, please forgive our slackness, there might be somethings that came up. If someone would like to donate the cash for solar, we can be there a lot quicker....
So remember, everyone is going to have their feelings on sustainability. Respect them and we all might get a little further in the ultimate goal.
Scott
Thursday, December 27, 2012
But do they taste as good.....
The never ending question about anything new in the food industry. Will it taste as good as the other guys product. Well, when you ask someone who is in that industry, the guy putting the new item out on the shelve of course they will say yes.
So I wanted to post the results of a study done in Florida comparing Ocean Shrimp to Freshwater Prawn to Saltwater farm raised shrimp. Ok, before you go there, it was an independent study, it wasn't sponsored by a bunch of guys who owned freshwater prawn farms. There were 100 people who were tested.
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/27631/1/33010151.pdf
Now i realize that there will be people on the gulf coast or people on the west coast that are already thinking that since those were Atlantic shrimp "no wonder the freshwater prawn won all categories". Well, that may not be it at all.
My own personal belief is that the freshwater prawn are being raised in cleaner water, are actually being fed a steady diet of a healthier food and honestly are being harvested in a much less stressing way. All of those things are known to effect the taste of any game animal or fish.
Once we get up an going we do want to have our own taste test. We will get shrimp from one of the coast, not frozen but shipped overnight, brackish water shrimp and our own freshwater prawn. We'll put ours in cold shock over night as if they would have had to be shipped as well to keep things fair. One chef prepares them all in the same way.
So hopefully if not this summer, next summer we'll have the great shrimp taste test here in Fort Collins.
In the meantime, keep your mind and taste buds open.
Scott
So I wanted to post the results of a study done in Florida comparing Ocean Shrimp to Freshwater Prawn to Saltwater farm raised shrimp. Ok, before you go there, it was an independent study, it wasn't sponsored by a bunch of guys who owned freshwater prawn farms. There were 100 people who were tested.
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/27631/1/33010151.pdf
Now i realize that there will be people on the gulf coast or people on the west coast that are already thinking that since those were Atlantic shrimp "no wonder the freshwater prawn won all categories". Well, that may not be it at all.
My own personal belief is that the freshwater prawn are being raised in cleaner water, are actually being fed a steady diet of a healthier food and honestly are being harvested in a much less stressing way. All of those things are known to effect the taste of any game animal or fish.
Once we get up an going we do want to have our own taste test. We will get shrimp from one of the coast, not frozen but shipped overnight, brackish water shrimp and our own freshwater prawn. We'll put ours in cold shock over night as if they would have had to be shipped as well to keep things fair. One chef prepares them all in the same way.
So hopefully if not this summer, next summer we'll have the great shrimp taste test here in Fort Collins.
In the meantime, keep your mind and taste buds open.
Scott
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
What is a Fresh Water Prawn?
What is a freshwater Prawn... First let me say what it isn't. It isn't a crawdad or a crawfish. I have been amazed at how many people think that. Now that I have that out of the way, here is an image that will give you a little better idea. This will show you a natural ocean shrimp, a freshwater prawn and a crawdad.
Now, once you get the shell and all the outer parts off of the shrimp and the prawn, you cannot tell them apart. For those of you who feel there would be a definite taste difference, you would be right. However you might be surprised in what that taste difference would be. I'll post those results from a blind taste test done in Florida in another post. Let's just say that those darned freshwater prawn are tasty... But, you can see that a crawdad looks nothing like the freshwater prawn.
One of the issues that we have here in the states is that with so much of our seafood coming in from overseas, and it is already cleaned and no head (finfish) or anything else to tell what it actually is, we really don't know what we are getting. We have to trust. In this case, when the head and shell is removed and you buy your "shrimp" from the grocer, we are hoping that it is shrimp and not prawn. No, there isn't anything wrong with prawn, but if you are expecting shrimp, you just hope you are buying shrimp. It is much worse with sea food caught in the ocean where they are actually doing all of the processing at sea. If one fish has the appearance and a taste that is close to another, they can catch a lesser expensive fish and sell it as a more expensive fish making a bundle, and the buyers are just hoping that they are getting what they are buying.
It is a big big problem, and all we can do is ask the overseas countries to get tougher on their laws. But we are getting off the topic. So there are you examples of a shrimp, freshwater prawn and crawdad.
Now, once you get the shell and all the outer parts off of the shrimp and the prawn, you cannot tell them apart. For those of you who feel there would be a definite taste difference, you would be right. However you might be surprised in what that taste difference would be. I'll post those results from a blind taste test done in Florida in another post. Let's just say that those darned freshwater prawn are tasty... But, you can see that a crawdad looks nothing like the freshwater prawn.
One of the issues that we have here in the states is that with so much of our seafood coming in from overseas, and it is already cleaned and no head (finfish) or anything else to tell what it actually is, we really don't know what we are getting. We have to trust. In this case, when the head and shell is removed and you buy your "shrimp" from the grocer, we are hoping that it is shrimp and not prawn. No, there isn't anything wrong with prawn, but if you are expecting shrimp, you just hope you are buying shrimp. It is much worse with sea food caught in the ocean where they are actually doing all of the processing at sea. If one fish has the appearance and a taste that is close to another, they can catch a lesser expensive fish and sell it as a more expensive fish making a bundle, and the buyers are just hoping that they are getting what they are buying.
It is a big big problem, and all we can do is ask the overseas countries to get tougher on their laws. But we are getting off the topic. So there are you examples of a shrimp, freshwater prawn and crawdad.
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