Whole Oceans President Jason Mitchell and outreach and development associate Jennifer Fortier sat down with SeafoodSource in the company's Portland, Maine, U.S.A. office to discuss the current pace of the company's Bucksport, Maine salmon recirculating aquaculture facility and what the horizon looks like for the company and land-based aquaculture as a whole.
SeafoodSource: What does closing on the property in Bucksport mean for Whole Oceans?
Mitchell: Closing on the property is obviously a big milestone. It makes the project tangible and real, it gives credence to all of the effort done over the past couple years leading up to that milestone. In some ways you might call that milestone a false peak. It has been intense, it has been rigorous getting to that point, but this is actually just the beginning.
There’s a solid two years of researching locations all over the country, East Coast, New England specifically, then Maine, and eventually Bucksport. But even after that there was over a year of diligence, both on the site and for the business plan. So all those prerequisites have been met; permitting, operational permitting, was a big piece of that. Being the first company in Maine through that was a big accomplishment. I’d say previously other companies that have looked in the area have seen too much barrier to entry for some of those reasons. Whole Oceans took the challenge and blazed the trail, and we’re happy to be the first ones through.
Closing on that property really is a testament to all that progress in a short amount of time. But really, as I said, it’s just the start, and looking into the future this industry overall has a huge potential in the state. We’re glad to be leading the charge and progressing quickly into the next phases of the project.
SeafoodSource: You mentioned a lot of other companies, and how Maine could have potential for land-based aquaculture. Nordic Aquafarms, for example, is just down the road, and you’ve also got Aquabanq recently announcing they’re settled on Maine. Is there something about Maine that makes it appealing?
Mitchell: I think it’s a couple of things. There’s a checklist of items you might consider to narrow in on a site, but a lot of it comes down to water and power.
Maine’s natural resources and the water, the fact that Atlantic salmon are a native species here is a benefit in that you can treat water to any level that you want. You could create drinking water out of seawater if you want, it just comes down to economics, and that’s the intersection with power. With Atlantic salmon being a native species in the area, by default, the characteristics of the water are closer to what we need for land-based aquaculture. It helps the biology, it helps with the water treatment, and ultimately it helps with the power.
Separate to the water, the availability for power in land-based aquaculture is also an important prerequisite. Our site specifically checks a lot of those boxes, because it’s previously a paper mill and water and power are also important to paper mills. Some of the existing infrastructure is available for us to repurpose. On the water side you’ve got the outfalls and the intakes, and on the power side you’ve got a [Central Maine Power] substation right in the middle of the site.
The bigger picture question you had, with the industry perspective, I would tell you that the market is big and there’s room for everybody. You could start at highest level about food, and protein, and seafood, and keep choking it down to aquaculture and land-based aquaculture, and eventually you get to salmon, we think there’s a lot of opportunity in the market in general. But land-based aquaculture specifically is kind of disruptive - disruptive innovation, disruptive technology - to that market. That technology enables aquaculture to have origin in sites that were previously prohibitive.
Right now, there’s basically three regions in the world that salmon comes from. You’ve got Chile, you’ve got Canada, you’ve got the Nordic region, a couple different countries, but it’s really three areas. Which further answers your question of picking location, you can see some commonality on those locations. But that business model is a centralized model, and the land-based technology enables us to locate in new areas, to bring it to a decentralized model. Where net-pen type solutions previously would have been prohibitive on the scale that you need domestically, especially in a state like Maine, now the land-based solution opens up this area for us to get into production.
Fortier: I also think that Bucksport is really exciting for us, because if you look at some of these land-based facilities, where they’re being built in Europe and here, some of them are in more rural areas. Cooke has a hatchery up in Bingham, Maine, in Western Maine. Sometimes it can be harder to get access to in terms of delivery and supplies, it can be a little bit harder to find and recruit skilled workers to more rural areas.
For us, to have not only the infrastructure we need physically, but also to have the economic and social infrastructure – where it’s a former mill town, they’re used to having a larger employer, people can walk to work, it’s on a main road, it has a port, it has a railway, things we may be able to utilize down the road – there’s so many bonus aspects to the site, beyond what we would normally look for.
Mitchell: That’s a good point, Jenn. I might redact my last answer about water and power, and say it’s really water, power, and people. Being located close to a population with a workforce that is easily adaptable to our application is huge. Water and power don’t matter without the workforce.
SeafoodSource: The impact of aquaculture projects on the environment is a big topic of debate for the communities they’re being built in. What is Whole Oceans’ stance on how the project will impact the environment, and what the company is doing to minimize that impact?
Mitchell: Whole Oceans' motives and values are not just centered around economics, there’s also an environmental and a social value tied to it. We talk every day about all three, so we see a double or triple impact in the approach of this project, there’s lots of environmental benefits. Even just going from a centralized model to a decentralized model, you avoid the transportation logistics and the associated carbon footprint.
In addition, the firewall for water treatment, the influent going into the systems, the water treatment and the recirculation aspect of the system, and the treatment of the effluent all provide a additional control that helps us optimize the water and better grow fish, and it also enables us to be a good steward to the environment, where we can control what’s in our effluent and be good stewards in this case to the Penobscot river.
SeafoodSource: This is perhaps counter to some of the other mills which in the past haven’t always treated the ecology of the river as well.
Mitchell: I’m not sure I would phrase it as they weren’t good stewards. In fact, I’m impressed at the stewardship the people in the town had. In some ways, I think they were ahead of their time. They put a lot of thought into drainage systems, and containment systems, and how to protect the land and protect the environment.
The best testament to that is our environmental assessment of the site, its been called the cleanest repurposed mill site that the state has ever seen. So there’s really low risk in environmental contaminants on the site, which was a big part of our diligence process. I chalk all of that up to the people of Bucksport, who took such pride in the side because it’s in the middle of their town, it’s a big part of their life. They were really good stewards of the site.
Even within being good stewards, just the nature of what was there, being a paper mill as compared to what we’re doing with land-based aquaculture, its an order of magnitude different. We’re just, by definition, a cleaner more sustainable industry than what was there previously. You also see the environmental benefits compared to the alternatives – the net-pen side, wild-caught – there’s some pretty clear environmental benefits.
The third value, the social side, is really where we get into discussion about repurposing the mill. Working with the town of Bucksport has been hugely satisfying to us, and the state really. We’re a Maine-based company, we love the state, and we’ve grown to really love Bucksport, and its important to us to make sure all three of those things are working. The economics, the environmental, and the social side, they all have to go together. A key enabler for our project has also been, and in some ways I think it can be a model – you see business, the local community, and the local government all working together. We find alignment in values, and alignment in approach, and we collaborate, and it’s a win for everybody.
SeafoodSource: On that note, neighboring Nordic Aquafarms has seen a lot of community pushback. Compared to that project, has Bucksport been relatively easy to work with as far as the town side? Do people seem supportive of the project as a whole?
Mitchell: Susan Lessard, the [Bucksport] town manager, would say the biggest difference between Nordic and Whole Oceans is the location, and there’s definitely some truth to that.
But I would say our site has gotten great community support, and I think it’s important to acknowledge the sequence in which these things transpired. The town had the mill close in 2014, but the town, being proactive and resilient, they were prepared, and they quickly responded with their own master plan of what they wanted the new identity and evolution of the town to look like.
An output from that was, they thought this was a great site to repurpose for aquaculture. So along comes Whole Oceans, and there’s alignment from the beginning. As they developed and refined that plan, we participated to the extent we could, and it became our plan.
I think often in the media, Whole Oceans gets all the attention because we’re the big shiny object, the new guy in town, but really I think it’s a story about Bucksport being resilient. We were just lucky to come in at a time when they had interest in establishing an industry like this already.
Fortier: I definitely think that the town is different in a lot of ways from some of the other mill towns. The manager prior to Susan Lessard, he really worked to build up a rainy-day fund in the town coffers. They knew, eventually, that maybe the mill was going to close, so they wanted to make sure that they didn’t have to raise their property taxes a lot the first year. I think they had something like USD 6 million [EUR 5.3 million] set aside to help defray some of those costs.
When you lose a large revenue source in your town, you can apply to the state for an emergency recalculation for your education funding, [but] usually it takes two years. I think with the emergency recalculation it takes a year. So the rainy day fund was able to help them defray until they could get through that process.
The town has so many amazing people in it who are really championing them: the chamber, and Main Street Bucksport, which is a specific sort of development plan that some towns have been implementing. You go to these meetings and the same two dozen people are showing up to everything. They’re really excited about their town, they’re interested in their town, they want to see it survive and develop and they’re doing well. Every store [site] on Main Street is full as of April, and that hasn’t happened in 10 years. The mill only closed four and a half years ago, I think that’s a testament to Bucksport as a whole, not just to us.
I think, for us, our relationship has been really personal, I would go and sit in the coffee shop, and everybody knew that I hung out there on the second floor of the local variety. And if they had a question, and I was there, they would sit down and we would have a chat. If I couldn’t answer their question, I’d figure out the answer and get back to them on a very personal level.
Talking with a lot of people, I kept hearing the same thing: "We’ve been a one employer town. We know what that’s like. We know what it’s like to rely on them to fund the soccer team or to buy jerseys or to donate pizza to events, relying on them over and over again. And we don’t want to go back to that."
This is the line that I have seriously heard from three different people: "We’re really excited you’re here. But we’re not depending on you to save us." Which I think is so different from some of these other towns which are waiting for the big company to swoop in and replace that value.
SeafoodSource: So people are behind what you do?
Fortier: I definitely have a couple of people that email me every three months with some questions and some concerns, there are some aspects of aquaculture they’re worried about. They’re worried about the wild salmon in the river, they worry about what’s going to be in our feed ingredients, which is a whole other conversation, because the feed industry is evolving just as rapidly as the RAS facility industry right now.
That’s a lot of good conversations to have, and questions about, "Hey, where can I buy your salmon?" I hear that from a lot of different people, and I feel bad, I keep saying, "I’m sorry, I don’t have any fish to sell you yet!"
Mitchell: It’s a journey not just for us, but for the town, and we’re doing it together.
SeafoodSource: What’s the timeline for the project now? What’s the next big obstacle, when will you be saying ‘we’re up and running?’
Mitchell: We’re kind of transitioning right now. We’re about to submit for our construction permits, and a prerequisite of that is having a level of fidelity in the design that you can meet all of the criteria in the permit, so we are blazing right into detail in the final design.
That brings us to contracting- and teaming- and partnering-type discussions, all in the name of preparing to execute. I think the normal expectation would be a few months, three or four months for the SLODA application (the state site location act), which is the state-sponsored construction permitting, which is another advantage of the site. There was already at SLODA permit there, so really we’re just going for an amendment, as opposed to going for a new one.
There’s a solid three to four months in construction permitting, both with the state and the town, and then we’ll look to transition into earthwork and site prep, and getting ready to hit the ground running. In all likelihood, our plan right now is to start in the spring with construction. There’s a good two years of construction ahead of us, but we would start production maybe halfway through the construction cycle – build the hatchery and the fresh water building first. Then the clock starts to keep the construction and the following stages of the construction ahead of the fish. We’re a good three to four years out from having fish on the market.
SeafoodSource: How has that permitting process been for Whole Oceans?
Mitchell: Permitting is a broad discussion, I put it into two buckets. One operational, and one for construction. There’s been nothing simple about the operational permits, that’s been a long arduous effort, working with all the regulatory agencies. With us being the first ones through, that was tricky.
The construction side there’s definitely an advantage over another site that doesn’t have a SLODA already established, because it allows us, as I said, to just do an amendment rather than establish one from the beginning.
Some sites would, depending on the design and the location, and the circumstances around it, things like outfalls and intakes sometimes trigger additional complexity and permitting with things like the Army Corps of Engineers, where all of that structure is existing for us in this site and conveyed with the deed and closing on the property.
SeafoodSource: There are a lot of companies looking at potential RAS facilities, and multiple in Maine in particular. Do you see proliferation as a good thing or is it threatening due to the competition?
Mitchell: There’s room in the market. I think seafood in general, the demand is growing, salmon specifically. I think that’s going to continue to grow. I think if you did a volume price analysis, you’d see there’s still room in the market.
I think over time, as people become more health-conscious, all things considered, they want to buy things that are more sustainable and responsible. I think you’ll see land-based aquaculture in general start with salmon and grow into other species and applications. I think there’s room for all these new entrants in North America.
I welcome the collaborative competition, I think it helps everybody, and in some ways if you think about supply chain support networks and distribution, and byproduct waste management – some of the inputs and outputs of land-based aquaculture – can evolve as the industrial base evolves also and that makes it better for everybody.
Fortier: For example, there isn’t a feed mill for salmon in Maine. But, we have had a couple of discussion with companies that have said, "If you’re up and running, and Nordic is up and running, and someone else comes in, that may be an impetus to increase our production or set up a new facility that is nearer to you.’
SeafoodSource: Feed is another subject, there’s a lot of companies experimenting with new feed methods. Have you decided on any feeds yet?
Mitchell: Whole Oceans and new entrants in land-based aquaculture are driving some of the support industries, like feed. It also applies to technology of land-based aquaculture, and other aspects of innovation that are enabling the technology.
Feed is a big piece of it. Feed is interesting because the feed model tends to follow the producer model. So previously, like we talked about centralization, feed companies have also become centralized. Land-based aquaculture moving to new locations has caused challenges for feed companies. In addition to just that logistics aspect, it’s also the nature of our systems and the need to control the water and think about things like biofilters, and the bacteria in addition to the actual fish. It changes the approach that the feed companies have, its less forgiving that what you would see in a net-pen environment because we also have to worry about the water quality and the biofilters.
They’re working to find the best solutions to optimize that, to account for both. Just in general, as the scale goes up as more production comes online, the supply chain for the feed companies needs to evolve also. With environmental, social, and sustainability aspects at play for us and them, they have to find new sources. Fishmeal, or harvesting smaller fish to put into the feed, is not a sustainable solution.
We’re working directly with a range of feed companies to understand what the latest technologies, what the options and what the innovations are, how we can source ingredients as local as possible and as sustainable as possible.
There’s creative things like algae-and insect-based protein, or plant-based protein, but we think there’s lots of options out there. In a lot of ways, as the technology starts to become a little more standardized, the focus is going to feed and the big differentiator between the different land-based aquaculture companies will be how they can best source and establish sustainable feed.
Fortier: Something that’s interesting is, as we reach the end of this decade, 2020, everybody is doing strategic planning. The Maine Aquaculture Association is getting ready for its next 10 year plan, and they’re turning to industry. Except industry now includes land-based, so where does that come in and what should their priorities be?
USDA and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture are both doing their next five-year plan, and they had a bunch of stakeholder meetings last summer about what this industry wants in terms of targeted research. A lot of it was about feed and sustainability and alternative binders, and RAS feed versus net-pen feed.
It’s trickling down not just from what industry wants, but to what to vendors need to do, what do researchers need to do to support this kind of growth.
SeafoodSource: All things considered, has Whole Oceans met its pacing goals?
Mitchell: I would say this project is beating expectations. There was at one time the perception that barrier to entry was too high in Maine, we’ve demonstrated that it’s possible and it has more potential to a level that just a year ago Whole Oceans would have said that our mission is 10 percent of the U.S. salmon market.
Having advanced so much so quickly, our aspirations have grown, and we want to establish additional sites on the east coast and the west coast, and its evolved into more of a North America strategy. At one time we were bullish to start with 5,000 metric tons [MT], I still think that’s where we’ll start. But we’ll design and build in the capacity to quickly grow to 10,000 [MT], and we want to get to 50,000 metric tons in the region. And we want to do the same on the west coast. We’re actively looking for other sites.
SeafoodSource: What are some of the obstacles and essential initiatives Whole Oceans is undertaking to get there?
Fortier: I think something that is going to be really critical for us is workforce development. That’s a lot of what I’ve been working on and having plans for year one, year two.
For us, it’s about supporting existing training programs, both undergrad, vocational, community college, maybe even down into high school level, some of the vocational centers to get students interested in aquaculture, and get them trained with basic knowledge.
We’re also looking at people from other industries, a facility like this requires electricians and carpenters and an army of plumbers and HVAC and engineers, and it’s a big puzzle. It can require maintenance from day to day to prevent issues. So I think there’s a lot of potential here in Maine, where we have a lot of people that are interested in retraining and taking the skills that they have into a new career.
SeafoodSource: That segues into processing. Do you think there’s opportunity for processing facilities to come in, similar to feed facilities?
Mitchell: Yes, I do. A lot of the idea of about indirect jobs and evolving supply, support, and distribution, applies to processing also. Both the fillets, and the waste.
Our plan right now is head on, gutted processing on site. Then, secondary processing would be considered someplace else. It just depends on the customer and the returns of offtake agreements, things like that. I do think there’s opportunity to do more processing, more value added processing, locally. In some ways there is capacity in the state already, just by nature of the seafood heritage in the state.
When you start considering the economics of that, I think the industry evolving and starting with a blank canvas here makes the discussion around better investments in processing and automation more plausible. As a proof of concept comes in, and we build momentum, its an easy next step to justify the capital of going into automated processing.
Since the last boom of seafood in the state, the automation around processing has really evolved a lot, and its really incredible. It’s unbelievable the automation, it can fish by fish determine the best yield and quality, really its fascinating. Not to get too far ahead of my skis here, when you start talking about the technology minded culture in the U.S. and how it comes in and the ability to start laying other industries on top of it like different IT and machine learning applications, you can really start drawing correlations between things. You can start measuring really discretely to see how different variables affect the fish. We can get transparency on a fish level if we want to the pedigree and the lifecycle of that fish. Even at the point of processing, you can tie the results of that processing, that fillet, back to the lifecycle of the fish as far back as we need to to help optimize the overall process.
I get excited about these things, and really there’s so many offshoots of opportunity around the core of land-based aquaculture that sometimes I have to reel myself back in. Because you have to focus on the core business, lets go get the site set up and get into producing. That discussion quickly leads into all other kinds of opportunities, but you have to make sure you don’t get too distracted about all the other opportunities before we finish.
Fortier: A lot of people ask me about that, "Are you going to do this?" People ask about aquaponics, they ask about compost. We’d love to look into doing all of that, but first we have to grow the fish!
