Sinergian Animal’s main programs are:

1. Humane Slaughter Initiative:

This is currently SWP’s main program. It aims to promote the adoption of electrical stunning technology in the shrimp industry to prevent inhumane slaughter of shrimp by asphyxiation and crushing. It achieves this by kickstarting the use of stunners in the industry by providing  the first electrical stunners to large producers so long as they commit to stun at least 100 million shrimp per annum. The offer is timebound (it must be redeemed by the end of 2025) creating a sense of urgency for producers to adopt the technology. By working with producers across the world, from Honduras to Vietnam, they ensure that the industry knows how to implement humane slaughter across all the contexts and farming systems they need to for humane slaughter to become standard industry practice worldwide.

2. Eyestalk-Ablation-Free Recognition Project

Eyestalk ablation is where a shrimp’s eyestalks are cut off by crushing, cutting, burning or tying it. As one might expect, this is believed to be extremely painful and traumatic for the animal. Nonetheless, it has become a common industry practice because it increases spawning and shortens the maturation time for breeding shrimp. Shrimp Welfare Project publicly recognizes retailers and producers who ban this process in their supply chain, helping to incentivise corporations to make this transition.

3. Scoping Research

Shrimp welfare is a very nascent field, with SWP being the first organization dedicated to it. As such, there are many open questions on how best to improve the lives of these animals. SWP conducts some of this crucial research themselves. So far, they have published scoping reports on the state of play in the shrimp industry in India and Vietnam, a report on what factors are most important to shrimp welfare, one on the emerging alternative shrimp market (e.g. cell-cultured shrimp), and a report on consumer attitudes toward shrimp welfare and willingness to pay for higher welfare products.

4. Public Outreach

Most people are unaware of the scale of shrimp farming (~440B animals slaughtered each year), of the welfare issues involved, or even of the scientific consensus that shrimp can feel pain. This creates an information failure in our food system, where the farming system doesn’t have to reform itself in line with what consumers would demand if they had all the information. SWP helps fix this information failure by speaking about the issue in news articles, at conferences and on podcasts.

• Pioneering efforts in the charity sector to improve the lives of farmed aquatic animals, normalizing this work and inspiring other charities to develop similar programs.

• Scaling their impact massively, already helping 1.7 billion animals per year (across 7 countries in 3 continents) having only launched in 2021

• Partnered with 3 major grocery retailers (M&S and Waitrose in the UK, and Dutch retailer Albert Heijn) to phase out inhumane slaughter in their supply chains

• Published a comprehensive report on prioritizing welfare improvements in the shrimp farming industry (valuable because it's such a nascent field where many farmers don’t know what to do to keep their shrimp happy and healthy)