Taste of BC achieves developments in RAS facility

Seafood company Blue Star Foods' wholly owned subsidiary Taste of BC Aquafarms has achieved "recent developments" and "key operating performance metrics", according to the company in a recent press release. These developments are related to the land-based farm Taste of BC is currently operating where it produces steelhead trout.

In the second quarter of 2022 the company hatched its first batch of Chinook Salmon, which are currently performing well in growth trials and demonstrating good food conversion rate (FCR), growth and low mortality. The intention is to raise them to an average size of three kilograms as it evaluates potential species diversification within the Pacific Salmon family.

Over the last six months average fish harvest weight has been 1.94kg, with the target being 2kg for the steelhead salmon it produces. The total harvest downgrade, which measures number of fish at harvest that weren't brought to market at full price in the last lifecycle, was 1.3%.

Construction of the new, state-of-the-art hatchery will be done in the third quarter of this year, which gives the company an opportunity to evaluate performance of next generation designs planned for its large-scale expansion before they are finalised.

Plated steelhead trout.

"The first six months of 2022 have been focused on increasing standing biomass within our pilot facility as we continue to limit test system capabilities," explains Ben Atkinson, the President of Taste of BC. "At the end of Q2-2022, we finished with a standing biomass of 40MT in our facility … without compromising water conditions or fish performance."

"We are extremely pleased with the capabilities of our pilot system which provides a solid foundation upon which we are designing our forthcoming expansion," he concludes.

Blue Star Foods recently began operating its soft-shell crab division in February of this year, having picked HTH Engineering & Equipment as its RAS technology provider for its Atlantic crab farm in South Carolina. You can read more about that and its recent report on RAS operations, HERE.

For more information on Blue Star Foods visit their website, HERE.