Balaton-based Tru Shrimp—which got an award from the Marshall Area Chamber of Commerce for renaming itself Iterro, which is supposed to be a clever Latin portmanteau word hinting “renew the earth” but serves mostly to complicate Google searches for the company’s history of overpromising and underdelivering—told Governor Dennis Daugaard and the world back in 2019 that they would take all the loans and incentives that Pierre and Madison showered on them and start building a shrimp plant at Lake Madison that summer. Not only did that promise slide and slide and slide, but now Tru Shrimp/Iterro is closing its Balaton research facility:
The company formerly known as tru Shrimp is closing its doors in the city of Balaton. Iterro Life Sciences President and CEO Brian Knochenmus confirmed Friday that the Iterro facility in Balaton was closing, but said he had no further comment at this time.
…In 2015, tru Shrimp opened a research center in Balaton focused on developing methods of commercial indoor shrimp farming. Over the past 10 years, the company’s attempts to build a commercial shrimp production facility in the region have not come to fruition.
…In 2017, tru Shrimp broke ground for a 12,000 square-foot facility in Balaton, located at the site of the former Balaton public school. The facility contained a “reef” of indoor tanks for raising shrimp [Deb Gau, “Iterro, Formerly Tru Shrimp, Closes Facility in Balaton,” Marshall Independent, 2025.11.21].
The South Dakota Governor’s Office of Economic Development and the legislators checking their performance were already getting nervous about whether Tru Shrimp would pay back the $5.5M GOED loaned them to do nothing in Madison:
Republican Rep. Marty Overweg called a $5.5 million state loan for the project a “huge mistake” during a July state Government Operations Audit Committee (GOAC) meeting.
Nearly seven years after a $5.5 million loan was approved, the project has not been built in Madison.
Overweg’s comments were made during a July presentation by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED).
GOED provided $5.5 million to the Lake Area Improvement Corporation of Madison in December of 2018 to be used for truShrimp’s aquaculture project planned for Madison. The facility would raise shrimp for commercial use.
In a late Monday afternoon email, KELO[-TV] was directed by GOED to the Lake Area Improvement for questions about the loan’s status or the status of the project.
On Tuesday afternoon, Lake Area Improvement Corporation’s executive director, Brooke Rollag, told KELO[-TV] that no construction had started on the planned Iterro facility location.
Rollag cited confidentially of the company’s financial information when she said she could not comment on whether the loan was being paid or paid back.
Rollag said the improvement corporation owns the land where the planned shrimp project would be located. A lack of construction on that site has not prevented other businesses from using improvement property in the industrial park, Rollag said.
GOED said in the Monday email that it “was monitoring” the situation with Iterro. The GOED also said in the Monday email that Iterro has not been in contact with GOED [Rae Yost, “Shrimp Company With Madison Tie to Close Minnesota Facility,” KELO-TV, updated 2025.11.25].
In paid propaganda from the South Dakota Biotech lobbying group last March, Tru Shrimp/Iterro boss Brian Knochenmus had the salesman’s gall to say Tru Shrimp hasn’t taken off because, “Institutional capital did not have the courage to do that, and they still do not, and I get it. It is a big jump.”
Yeah, sure, courage. The salesman wants you to believe that buying his pitch signals your moral virtue. Tru Shrimp’s Balaton closure, on top of the absence of shrimping in Madison, South Dakota’s investment in these shrimpers was a big jump… right into losing $5.5 million.