Maynard, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based AquaBounty Technologies is ceasing all salmon-farming activities, and its CEO David Melbourne has resigned after years of little progress and financial losses.
AquaBounty announced the move on 11 December, revealing Melbourne resigned effective immediately on 6 December after just six months in the role. The firm's board of directors also announced it was winding down hatchery operations at its Bay Fortune recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility – the last salmon RAS facility the company was operating.
“AquaBounty will immediately begin to wind down its Bay Fortune operation, its only remaining operating farm, including the culling of all remaining fish and a reduction of substantially all personnel over the course of the next several weeks,” AquaBounty CFO and Interim CEO David Frank said.
The facility was the last farm AquaBounty was operating after it sold its RAS facility in the U.S. state of Indiana to Superior Fresh in July and its RAS facility in Rollo Bay on Prince Edward Island, Canada, in September.
Both of those sales aimed to solve cash crunches at the company, which lost USD 27.5 million (EUR 26.2 million) in FY 2023. The company’s losses spiked in Q2 2024 to over USD 50 million (EUR 47.6 million) due to a non-cash impairment charge associated with the sale of its Indiana-based facility, and it posted more losses in Q3 2024.
Frank said the losses have stacked up to the point it ...
