Interview with AquaFounders Capital: from Black Cod to Farm in a Box

Aquafounders Capital, led by land-based aquaculture pioneers Thue Holm and Ohad Maiman, is set to bring black cod, or sablefish, to European markets through a new farming venture: The Black Cod Company.  

As the duo confirm Zeeland in the Netherlands as the site for their latest fish farming venture, WeAreAquaculture caught up with the land-based aquaculture trailblazers to find out more about the project, as well as an update on their RAS technology business, Farm in a Box, which has recently announced a new collaboration with Denmark’s Green Scale. 

Why did Maiman and Holm select black cod for their new farming venture?

"We still have the conviction that the best use of RAS or land-based technology is to aim for this trifecta of high value species that works well in RAS, deployed in an area where it's not otherwise available,” Maiman explains. 

RAS is not just for salmon, he says. “Black cod is one of the highest value species. There's been enough research work done to close the cycle on the hatchery and to confirm that they are well adaptable to RAS.” 

Black cod, also known as sablefish, is renowned for its buttery texture and high omega-3 content, making it a prized species in gourmet cuisine. Despite growing demand in Europe, black cod is primarily wild-caught in North America, with a global supply of around 23,000 tonnes. That means European markets often rely on frozen imports, Maiman explains. With The Black Cod Company, the Aquafounders partners aim to produce fresh, high-quality black cod locally, meeting market demands year-round. 

Maiman is convinced that black cod, like yellowtail kingfish, has significant potential beyond Asian cuisine, although he says this will certainly be the starting point for the business. 

“The experience I had with kingfish is that yellowtail was primarily used as sushi sashimi in Japanese cuisine, but we were able to get chefs to experiment with it and end up using it as a central dish. So, I think that once we produce here and work with local chefs, we'll probably end up expanding the use of it, but the base case is replacing imports for current users.” 

The team selected Zeeland, Netherlands, as the location for their black cod venture – but what’s special about this particular site? 

Familiar with the area from Maiman’s success with The Kingfish Company, the land-based yellowtail fish farming venture he co-founded in 2015, the entrepreneurs cite the region’s ideal aquaculture conditions, access to a specialist workforce from the nearby University of Wageningen, and existing aquaculture infrastructure as key factors.  

“Wageningen is putting out a lot of great people every year, and that's just so important in getting these kinds of operations up and running - to have access to really good people,” Holm explains.

“Zeeland is located centrally in Europe, so recruiting is also way easier. Trust me, I've had to recruit to very remote places and that's not that easy, but Zeeland is located close to big cities, which also makes it easier for expats to move there. It's a great place to develop this kind of startup company.” 

“We did look across Europe, but another benefit to the site was the readiness of an existing building and aquaculture permits,” Maiman points out, noting that this is a major benefit in  accelerating the project’s timeline and reducing startup costs. “Starting from scratch can take years, but with this site, we’re already well on our way,” he says.  

The Black Cod Company is partnering with local family-run aquaculture business Sea Farm, whose facilities neighbour their chosen site, bringing invaluable expertise to the project. “It’s extremely beneficial. Sea Farm and the Bout family have been operating for over close to 30 years in that location. Having a local partner that knows the ins and outs of all the permits and the local bureaucracy is extremely helpful,” Maiman adds. 

With fundraising efforts in motion, the duo aims to complete the initial setup soon, encompassing a full-cycle hatchery and initial production, with broodstock brought from the north-west coast of America, Maiman confirms. 

“We've been funding the development up to now ourselves, but we’re now bringing in an equity investor to support that. And the idea is to start with the validation of the growth curve, the initial market development in Europe. And later, when it makes sense, we have the potential to expand on the empty site next to the building," Maiman says. 

“Personally, I love to have fish in the water and be responsible for fish. I’m a born and bred fish farmer, and there’s nothing that makes me happier. With new projects, there’s always new things to figure out, and the same thing goes here. It’s going to be super exciting,” Holm adds. 

The Black Cod Company is not the only project the Aquafounders duo have in their sights, as Maiman and Holm aim to make RAS technology more accessible to would-be fish farmers around the world through their Farm in a Box.

Farm in a Box, Maiman explains, aims to streamline the RAS process, making it easier and more cost-effective to farm fish in diverse locations. Designed to be modular, scalable, and quickly deployable, Farm in a Box reduces the complexity often associated with traditional aquaculture setups, the partners say.

Maiman explains that the project was inspired by the challenges faced by the pair in previous ventures. “Farm in a Box is built on lessons learned. We’ve focused on creating a system that’s easy to install and operate, reducing costs and accelerating the time to market.” This flexibility allows the system to be adapted for various species and locations, ultimately supporting a more sustainable and accessible aquaculture industry worldwide.

The team recently announced that Farm in a Box will integrate ReelData's leading AI products for land-based aquaculture into the design of its system. With this strategic partnership, both companies aim to provide farmers with scalable, cost-effective, and highly efficient and reliable land-based aquaculture solutions.

Farm in a Box is also a founding member in a collaborative effort to establish a new aquaculture hub in Denmark, part of the Green Scale project. Spearheaded by Jørgen Mads Clausen, the second-generation owner of Danish engineering firm Danfoss, this initiative aims to create a center of excellence for sustainable food systems, reducing the carbon footprint of food production – with a particular focus on aquaculture.

“If you want to make our food systems more CO2 neutral, it makes sense to farm more fish. And if you want to integrate that into the food production systems around the world, it just has to be land-based,” says Holm.

“Farm in a Box is one of the ways to make farming fish simpler and cheaper, therefore of course we wanted to be a partner on this, and we’ve been working very closely with Jørgen Mads Clausen over the past year, figuring out how to do it, strategizing. and doing a lot of research. Now the foundation is ready to launch Green Scale as an organization. We've been getting a lot of support not only from the RAS sector, but from a lot of people working on the green transition.”

Holm points out that Clausen has worked with land-based aquaculture projects in the past, with Danfoss a major supplier for many RAS systems, supplying vital components such as heat exchangers.

“Farm in a Box is built on all the tough things we went through, the long construction times, project overruns, farms that are way too complicated to operate," Holm explains. “We didn’t have a set idea when we started, but we had a list of first principles of what should be done. The top parameters led to some technical decisions, and that led to the design, which needed to be mass scalable.”

“It’s been a long and much more tedious process than designing a normal RAS farm. There have been a lot of iterations to get to the design we have today – one that’s quite unique and much simpler, more manufacturable, and way faster to install. That’s where we think the future lies,” he adds.

“We want to run our own farms, our own demos with specific species first. We won’t be selling systems that haven’t been tested yet. That’s one of our core philosophies. We want to be in control of our own first model, so the only objective is to make sure it ensures optimal performance before we sell it to our customers."

The duo say they have advanced the design for Farm in a Box significantly over the past year and are about to build their first demo R&D unit, for both saltwater and freshwater, to ensure the system works as intended before commercialization. The modular farming equipment will be available for shipping worldwide, with assembly taking a matter of months rather than years.

“We’ve already had requests for price quotes, and we could have gone the way of most other RAS suppliers, and test the new design on a client," Maiman adds.

“But while it’s nice to have early sales, it can also shoot you in the foot if you have to start fixing bugs on a client’s farm rather than doing it yourselves. Once we are ready to commercialize, the modularity and the prefabrication means it should be almost as easy as a greenhouse from the client’s perspective, whether they want a thousand tonnes of trout or 10,000 tonnes of salmon.”