Finger Lakes Fish, a land-based coho salmon farm in New York, USA, recently announced that Phil Gibson, the operations general manager and the former seafood director at Safeway, is being promoted to CEO of the company.
Gibson first joined the company as an investor at the end of 2017.
Working in a 43,000-square-foot recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility in Auburn, New York, U.S.A., the company plans to hit full capacity in July of this year: 2,000 market-ready fish a week, or 450 tons annually.
When SeafoodSource spoke with Gibson earlier this year, he explained that the company’s coho, marketed under the brand LocalCoho, aims to fit a premium spot in a market saturated with Atlantic salmon.
“Our facility, and future facilities, will only supply fish within a 300-mile radius,” said Gibson. “The retail and food service industries have certainly picked up on this growing consumer preference for buying more local products. If you go to a grocery store, you see signs all over the place about how many local products are available. So, not only will we be delivering a fresher product, but it gets put in that local category as well.”
Gibson did not want to elaborate on Finger Lakes Fish’s long-term plans for expansion, but he did note that expansion across the country, in as many as 12 regional locations, is a possibility. The Auburn facility will serve as proof of concept for new facilities. The farm hatched its first eggs in April 2018 and began selling its first batch of fish in September of 2019.
Some reports have speculated that Illinois could be the next location for a Fingers Lakes Fish facility, although additional funding would be needed for any sort of expansion.
Finger Lakes Fish was supplying two restaurants – Glenora Wine Cellars in Dundee, and Graft Wine + Cider Bar – and was in talks to supply a few high-end grocers – but talks have reportedly died down doe to coronavirus related closures.
Working with farm-to-table distributors, Gibson said the firm was having a lot of success on restaurant menus early on.
“What we're finding is that the people that we're selling to embrace it as a point of differentiation from their competition,” said Gibson. “It’s a different species, it’s local, it’s something that people want to try.”
With expansion talks, the company has remained adamant that the plan is to stick to coho salmon, not move on to farming new species anytime soon.
Photo courtesy of Phil Gibson/Finger Lakes Fish
