RAS farmer ‘learnt from mistakes’

LAND based salmon farming pioneer Atlantic Sapphire is now reaching expectations at its Danish farm, said the company, presenting an investor update at the North Atlantic Seafood Forum in Bergen.
The company’s farm in Langsand, Hvide Sande, Denmark, operating since 2011, has achieved a biomass of 870 tonnes (real live weight), which will produce an annual yield of 2,900 tonnes.
The fish in the saltwater grow-out phase are at an average weight of 2.2kg, and the feed conversion rate is estimated to be 1.05.
With a strong focus on R&D, the Danish site has honed its technology and procedures, enabling the company to ‘commercially scale up production in end markets close to the consumer’.
The Langsand venture has achieved proof of concept, with ‘considerable learning from continued process improvements, as well as mistakes’, said Atlantic Sapphire.
While objectives in Denmark will be to continue to ‘drive down operating risk,’ the group is already thinking much bigger at its US facility in Miami.
The Florida farm aims to produce 90,000 tonnes by 2026 and introduced the first batch of eggs into the hatchery last November.
The company said it is well underway with construction of its phase one build out, with some 1.15 million fish in the RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) site.
The projected harvest of approximately 10,000 tonnes of salmon annually is due to begin in Q3, 2020.
Atlantic Sapphire received $86 million DNB/EKF bank financing in February, following equity rounds of NOK 600 million in 2017 and NOK 640 million in 2018.
However, the company’s CEO, Johan Andreassen, told delegates at the NASF that some analysts are overestimating the impact of land based production in the early years, Intrafish reported today.
‘Realistically, I do not expect more than 20,000 to 30,000 metric tons coming from land based production by 2022,’ he said.
Picture: Atlantic Sapphire CEO Johan Andreassen (photo: Miami Herald)