How Prairie Aquatech became Houdek

What’s in a name? For Prairie Aquatech, it’s plenty. The firm was founded in Brookings by two South Dakota State University professors who discovered a way to amp up protein in soybean meal-based fish food through a fermenting process. Fast forward a few years, and Prairie Aquatech has hit Fast Forward to include pet foods and swine rations. So now the company is known as Houdek, a nod to Eastern South Dakota’s native soil type, with a test bed “Back Forty” in Brookings, South Dakota, and a processing plant seven miles down the road in the compact town of Volga, South Dakota.