Hudson Valley Fisheries, a steelhead trout producer using a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) based in Hudson, New York, U.S.A., has abruptly closed its operations.
Hudson Valley Fisheries announced on its website that it will be ceasing operations. The company said in a statement on its Instagram page “multiple factors” contributed to the closure, including inadequate water supplies, higher fuel costs, and tariffs that made it difficult to continue business.
“It is with great regret that we announce we will be ceasing operations,” the company said. “Since 2018, we have been proud to serve customers throughout New York City, the Hudson Valley, and across the United States with premium, sustainably raised steelhead trout in both fresh and smoked formats and more recently in single-ingredient freeze dried Happy Trout Pet Treats format.”
The company said its inability to secure additional water capacity from a dedicated water line prevented it from increasing its fish production capacity to achieve long-term profitability, even as it kept seeing escalating costs across all inputs.
“Taken together, these challenges have made it difficult for HVF to operate at the scale necessary to remain financially sustainable,” the company said. “The company will work closely with its employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders throughout this transition and remains grateful for the support it has received from Columbia County.”
In 2020 John Ng, one of the founders of the company, told SeafoodSource the business came after seeing potential opportunity in aquaculture and catching wind of a prior operation – Local Ocean – closing down. He said the plan was to establish a commercial-sized steelhead trout operation, with as much as 1,000 metric tons (MT) of production a year.
