Shrimp Welfare Project Makes Shrimp Farming More Humane

Note: there is no scientific consensus on whether shrimp can experience pain, but a reasonable argument can be made for helping them. If you're not interested in the idea of helping shrimp, we recommend checking out our other reviews.

The Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP) is a charity that lets shrimp farmers use free electrical stunners, which are believed to reduce suffering during the slaughter process. Each stunner generally costs $55,000—and can stun hundreds of thousands of shrimp per hour.

Electrical costs to operate stunners are only around $1 per hour, but the high initial purchase price remains a significant barrier to widespread adoption. SWP is solving this problem.

How It Works

SWP approaches retailers and offers to buy stunners for their supply chain, provided that:

Farmers in the supply chain agree to stun a minimum number of shrimp each year.
The retailer agrees to prioritize buying shrimp that have been stunned.

According to SWP, they've secured 17 of these agreements and distributed 6 stunners (as of April 2025).

Other Work

In addition to distributing shrimp stunning equipment, SWP has done work that includes:

Helping farmers implement sludge treatment to improve water quality for shrimp.
Helping farmers implement chill killing—a method of shrimp slaughter that is not as humane as stunning, but is more economically feasible.
Providing training and resources to help farmers improve shrimp welfare.

To learn more about SWP's other work, click here.

Conclusion

SWP has created a solid system for helping farm animals:

SWP provides expensive animal welfare equipment for free.
This makes farmers more open to using the animal welfare equipment.

Additionally, SWP provides relatively strong evidence to substantiate their work, including independently verifiable evidence of shrimp stunning equipment being purchased. For these reasons, we believe SWP is a strong option for donors who want to help shrimp.

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References

SWP: Humane Slaughter Initiative

SWP: Model with Stunner Purchasing Prices

Note: this model from SWP shows how much they paid for each stunner.

Shrimp Weights

Optimar Electrical Stunner Specifications

Global Electrical Prices

Note: Voltage × Current = 220 V × 25 A = 5,500 W = 5.5 kW. 5.5 kW × $0.11/kWh = $0.61 per hour

SWP: Humane Slaughter Initiative

Note: In April 2025, SWP stated that 17 agreements had been made with 6 stunners distributed, and that it typically takes 6 to 8 months for SWP to distribute a stunner and have it operational once an agreement has been signed.