Salmon Farms on Land Take Aim at a $19 Billion Industry
They could upend the fishing sector—but only if companies can bring the costs down first.
Salmon hatchlings at Atlantic Sapphire’s aquaculture facility in Homestead, Florida.
Photographer: James Jackman for Bloomberg BusinessweekStanding on a palatial salmon farm next to the Florida Everglades, Damien Claire isn’t bothered by the water dripping from the pipes and ducts overhead, even as it soaks his company-issued button-up and shaggy brown hair. Instead, the 47-year-old chief marketing officer for aquaculture company Atlantic Sapphire ASA is focused on the 450,000-gallon tank before him swirling with some 30,000 fully grown salmon. When one, a 10-pounder, leaps from the water, Claire yelps, “She says hi!”
This wasn’t the future he’d imagined for himself two decades ago, when he was a “tech guy” at a Wall Street hedge fund. But Claire couldn’t resist the pivot when, in 2011, he met Atlantic Sapphire co-founder Johan Andreassen, who said to him, “I’m going to change the world—do you want to be a part of it?”