Overfishing in a number of countries and the growing international trade presence of Australian businesses has spawned several local aquaculture companies marketing high-end seafood products like barramundi.
Overfishing in a number of countries and the growing international trade presence of Australian businesses has spawned several local aquaculture companies marketing high-end seafood products like barramundi.
Marine Produce Australia, Cell Aquaculture and Australis Aquaculture are all involved in fully integrated pond to plate programs – growing-out, harvesting and distributing barramundi and other seafood species.
Marine Produce’s operations are located at Cone Bay in the Buccaneer Archipelago, near Derby off the north-west coast of WA.
It has a 165-tonne nursery capable of handling 200,000 fingerlings (baby fish) at a time, and two fully operational sea cages.
The fingerlings are hand reared in the nursery, then transferred to the sea cages where they grow-out to market size in around 12 months.
The company has undertaken several commercially simulated harvests, the first of which last year produced nearly a tonne of barramundi, but is yet to market its produce commercially.
Marine Produce plans to expand the nursery and add 10 new sea cages by mid 2006, which will give the facility a total annual capacity of 1,800t of barramundi.
It also has a prawn project, at Elisabeth Creek in the Northern Territory, where its produce is being harvested on a continuous basis.
Cell Aquaculture has adopted a different method for its seafood farming operation.
It uses a fully land-based process, called the ‘cell’ system, where fingerlings are developed in a hatchery, transferred to a nursery then grown-out in larger tanks.
This bio-secure process controls the production cycle and removes the risk factors that occur in natural growing environments.
Cell Aqua’s growth model is to export the fingerlings live to overseas markets, where it will establish its modular cell tanks, to allow the fish to grow-out to market size.
In February the company completed a deal to have barramundi fingerlings grown-out at a hatchery in Mississippi in the US to supply the massive American market.
“This acquisition provides Cell Aquaculture with the opportunity to establish a viable long-term presence in the United States and a strong base from which to expand,” Cell Aqua managing director Perry Leach said.
In March, the company announced a similar deal in the Netherlands to service the European market, where initial barramundi sales are scheduled in the third quarter of 2006.
Australis is also capitalising on America’s appetite for barramundi.
The Perth-headquartered company also cultivates fingerlings in Australian hatcheries, which are flown live to an indoor farming facility – in this case, Massachusetts in the US.
Australis is well advanced in its operation. It owns its Massachusetts fish farm, one of the largest in the US, has had it stocked with barramundi hatchlings, and has established a national wholesale distribution network and commenced sales to supermarket chains in the US.
