January 7, 2008 - SFB Staff (Jan. 7) — Blue Ridge Aquaculture of Martinsville, Va., has acquired West Virginia Aqua LLC of Mingo County, W.Va., and will shift its production focus from arctic char to Atlantic salmon. The transaction became effective on Jan. 1.

Bill Martin, Blue Ridge’s founder and president, told the The State Journal of Charleston, W.Va., that the market for arctic char is limited, but demand for farmed salmon is high.

“We’ll be raising salmon and steelhead (trout) there,” Martin said. “We intend to be the biggest salmon producer in the lower 48. We have a lot of good plans for the operation there. We plan on producing 100 million to 250 million pounds (of salmon) a year. We’ll have to see how much of it can be produced in West Virginia.”

Martin founded Blue Ridge Fisheries in 1986. He changed the name to Blue Ridge Aquaculture in 1992. The company produces tilapia, shrimp and cobia. It reportedly has the largest indoor tilapia facilities in the world, the first indoor cobia facility in the United States and a pilot shrimp farm, according to the company’s Web site.