An executive with Atlantic Sapphire USA, a company in the process of building a land-based salmon farm in Miami, Florida, said the company has hit several challenges in its first years of existence.
Damien Claire, the executive vice president of offtake at Atlantic Sapphire, gave an update on the company’s USD 350 million (EUR 307.7 million) project at the Global Seafood Market Conference in Coronado, California, U.S.A. on 16 January.
“We’re currently in phase one, which we expect will produce 10,000 tons of harvest next year. By 2026, we should ultimately be able to do 90,000 tons. So it’s significant volume – there’s not many traditional farming regions that can produce at that volume,” Claire said.
In December, the company introduced 800,000 eggs to its hatchery, even as it continues construction on the rest of its farm. It is still on track to harvest its first salmon in 2020, despite running into difficulties with the construction.
“There are a lot of challenges, some of them we know, and being the first one to do this, some of them we don’t. Sometimes some people say the early bird gets the worm. Unfortunately, they also say the second mouse gets the cheese. It’s hard to be first and be the ones to make all the mistakes. We think we caught most of them, but we’re pretty sure there are more surprises in front of us, especially trying to do construction in south Florida,” Claire said. “It has been an interesting challenge in terms of timing. I also think we’re completely crazy because we decided to put eggs before we completed the entire construction. But now the fish is not going to wait, so I think timing and performing on schedule is really the issue. But we’re doing it as we speak in Denmark. So, making it happen and dealing with the challenges ahead of us.”
The systems developed by Atlantic Sapphire will ensure that the impact of biological issues will be minimized, Claire said.
“Our CFO likes to say we’re a risk mitigation company, and we have a lot of independent systems in place in the first phase of the farm. We created six systems because fish die. It happens to all of us [salmon farming companies]. Fish die for whatever reason – mismanagement, algae blooms – and for us, it’s all about risk-mitigating,” he said.
Claire said he believes the sale of Atlantic Sapphire’s U.S.-grown salmon will be smoother due to the ground already broken by sister company Platina Seafood, of which Claire is a part-owner. Platina has been selling salmon grown by Atlantic Sapphire’s Danish subsidiary, Langsand Laks, in higher-end food retailers across the U.S., including at Dean & Deluca.
“For us, the biggest challenge now is to perform. It’s been eight years in the making. We finished our proof of concept in Denmark and we’ve shown we can produce consistently great-tasting four-kilo fish. We’ve also starting to sell it and be successful in North America to various retailers and foodservice providers,” he said. “Now need to do it for 90,000 tons – we need to perform at scale. We need to make it financially viable to become a successful company. But we have great investors and they trust us and the project, and now we just need to perform, compete, put our heads down and make it happen.”
Asked about how Atlantic Sapphire will position itself in the market, Claire said he is of the opinion that salmon companies must compete not against each other, but against other proteins.
“There are a lot of new [salmon] brands coming up that are identifying as antibiotic-free salmon, or four-star [Best Aquaculture Practices], and they all have a story to tell in the fresh shelves. Monterey Bay Aquarium made everyone that’s [Aquaculture Stewardship Council]-certified yellow-rated. And yellow-rated used to just be Verlasso. Hats off to them, their program is top-[notch] and really got a huge part of the market. Unfortunately for them but fortunately for the whole market, there’s now a lot more companies that have that claim,” Claire said. “What I think is really important is to remember we’re all in the same pot here trying to sell more fish and it’s so important, as a publicly-traded company, we really took a stand to never put any negative comments on salmon in general or on any fish. The industry does not grow when you take one percent off each other, but by taking one percent from pork or beef. There are a lot of NGOs who would like to give us a trophy to demonize the rest of the industry, and our stand has been not to do that. Our focus is to sell more salmon, and that’s where the message needs to go.”
Nonetheless, Claire said he believes Atlantic Sapphire’s product is top-notch.
“There might be a misconception that you can just build a farm and grow salmon,” he said. “You still need very special conditions. The main condition you need is water access and water discharge. We hear about a lot of other projects in the U.S., Asia, or even in the Middle East, and we’re hopeful that as an industry, everybody is successful. But our vision is, we found the right place to build that scale, there is a reason we are not in those other places.”
Photo courtesy of GSMC/Damien Claire
