Seafood supplier CleanFish is now the exclusive United States supplier of Aquna Sustainable Murray Cod – premium, pond-grown “cod” from Australia.
Interestingly, the fish, produced by Aquna in Riverina, NSW, Australia, is not really cod.
“It was named by English settlers of Australia because that was a reference that they knew; it’s actually a freshwater species indigenous to Australia,” Alisha Lumea, director of marketing and communications for San Francisco, California, U.S.A.-based CleanFish, told SeafoodSource.
Sustainable Murray Cod is utilized primarily in high-end restaurants in Australia, both in cooked and raw formats. First adopters of the fish in the U.S. include Cafe Sushi in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and restaurant Wayan in New York, New York.
“We’re delighted to bring this one-of-a-kind fish to North America,” said Mike Moniz, managing director of CleanFish, in a press release.
Aquna is the only aquaculture producer of Murray Cod in the world and its farm sites are land-based in an agricultural area. The water used for the fish is then recycled to water crops.
The Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) of the fish is approximately 1.1:1, and the diet consists of sustainably-sourced land-based vegetable content and limited marine content, according to Lumea.
Plus, Aquna is developing a feed formulation that contains only fishmeal and fish oil from fish species classed as invasive to Australian waterways, such as the European carp and English perch.
“This doesn’t just reduce the impact of invasive species in Australia - it reduces reliance on wild-caught forage fish sources,” Lumea said.
Aquna Sustainable Murray Cod also formed a partnership with multi-Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal. Blumenthal has become a shareholder and a key advocate for the company, and “his team of world-class chefs will collaborate with the luxury Murray Cod producer on the menu and product development to extend the food brand’s reach in local and global markets,” CleanFish said.
“The innovative way MCA has created a luxury fish product by combining natural processes, evolved over millions of years, with cutting-edge technology aligns with the way I approach food and cooking, resulting in fantastic quality,” Blumenthal said in the press release.
Image courtesy of Aquna
