During the last decade, organic acids (OA) and their salts have been used as additives in aquafeed to increased nutritional values due their participation in some metabolic pathways and energy generation in organisms. Benzoic acid (BA) is one of the most used for its properties as a fungal growth inhibitor. It is used as a preserver in a wide variety of human consumption products included wine. Additionally, is also demonstrates health and growth benefits when its included in chickens, turkeys, cattle, and pig diets by modifying the energy metabolism and the microbiota and intestinal tract morphology. There is scarce information of BA inclusion in aquafeed and is non-existent in white shrimp, P. vannamei. This study evaluated the effects on growth, survival, feed conversion rate (FCR), energy content, and health status, through lipid quantification in hepatopancreas, histological analysis, and saline stress tests of white shrimp juveniles (Penaeus vannamei) by including BA at different concentrations (C0:0, C1:1.0, C2:1.5, and C3:2 g kg− 1) in a commercial feed. Increased BA inclusion presented significant differences (p ˂ 0.05) in the hepatosomatic index (Initial: 4.51 ± 0.65, C0: 4.01 ± 0.92, C1: 3.44 ± 1.68, C2: 2.37 ± 0.84, C3: 3.18 ± 1.60), hepatopancreas lipid content (Initial: 402.02 ± 48.76, C0: 293.48 ± 22.30, C1: 229.15 ± 11.46, C2: 136.69 ± 20.50, C3; 88.44 ± 6.19 mg g− 1) and histopathological damage in all BA concentrations. The lowest survival was 94.44% in C1. The FCR is within the ranges registered by the FAO except for that obtained in the C0. Calorimetric analysis and BA detection in muscle revealed no significant differences between concentrations. Due to the results obtained, the evaluated inclusions of BA in juvenile white shrimp (P. vannamei) diets are not recommended.
