A Minnesota-based startup looking to build the country’s first commercial indoor walleye farm is still far from breaking ground on a production site.
“We’ve made some major progress, but all of this has turned out to be far more challenging than one would have expected,” said Clarence Bischoff, founder and CEO of Blue Water Farms and president of the Minnesota Aquaculture Association. “But we’re getting it, and it’s been a very rich experience in doing so.”
In a letter from October 2020, Thom Petersen, Minnesota’s agriculture commissioner, shared his support for Blue Water Farms.
“Walleye is a coveted food fish here. The market possibilities are large if we can dial in the production needs of this emerging industry,” Petersen wrote. “Blue Water Farms has proved to be a leader in the aquaculture field. The farm is involved in initiatives that are working to bring the aquaculture industry to the next level.”
Last spring, Blue Water Farms was planning to operate its walleye hatchery, processing facilities and an aquaponic operation to produce lettuce, strawberries, cherry tomatoes and other products at a city-owned property in Red Wing. That plan has since changed.
“We decided that’s not the right spot for us,” Bischoff said.
A well that is now closed off located at the potential location in Red Wing was considered a “major asset” for Blue Water Farms, Bischoff said. He also said the group encountered problems “politically” as stipulations were added to a purchase offer that caused investor concern.
“Our investors just said forget it,” Bischoff said of the Red Wing location.
New search, partners
The startup is now in the hunt for a new location that has “good water and some acreage,” Bischoff said, and not far from St. Paul where the group has agreed to a partnership with Shanghai Wholesale, a wholesale distributor located in the Twin Cities.
Clarence Bischoff, founder and CEO of Blue Water Farms as well as the founder and president of the Minnesota Aquaculture Association, in his home office. (Noah Fish / Agweek)
“Shanghai Wholesale will sell all the walleye that we can produce, and at a price that works for us,” Bischoff said.
Blue Water Farms has also recently entered a partnership with a group in Norway responsible for a new Recirculating Aquaculture System that Bischoff said the group will use in Minnesota.
Aquaculture technology has become more advanced and sustainable in the last decade, but Bischoff said it’s still behind in the U.S., which is why Blue Water Farms has looked abroad for direction.
“We needed to reach out to European companies with more experience to resolve the issues that we were encountering,” he said. “We’ve connected with those using advanced technology in Norway and from The Netherlands and Denmark, to get us going here in Minnesota.”
Minnesota’s plan for aquaculture
Bischoff said he hopes the state’s new aquaculture plan will include enough infrastructure investment needed to build the type of aquaculture systems that Blue Water Farms will need to produce walleye and other plant products.
“In aquaculture in Minnesota, (the food fish market) is the biggest prize and that has the greatest potential,” he said.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture fielded public input on its new draft state aquaculture plan this winter, with officials expected to present the final plan to the state Legislature in February. It’s been 34 years since Minnesota wrote its last aquaculture plan and that plan did not include the raising of fish for food.
Interest in food-fish aquaculture is growing in Minnesota, according to Minnesota Sea Grant, which finished its three-year project to determine the potential for a sustainable food-fish aquaculture industry in Minnesota.
Bischoff said the Minnesota Aquaculture Association was “very concerned” with the state’s aquaculture draft plan because of the projections for the food-fish market, which do not align with the potential seen by the association and Blue Water Farms for the sector in the state.
The Minnesota Aquaculture Association met with the consulting group that wrote the draft plan and was able to voice specific concerns, Bischoff said, which he hopes will be ironed out in the final plan.
“The key thing is being far too low on their projections, because of the uncertainty around getting the infrastructure in place,” he said. “After we talked, I believe they are ready to move those projections in a much more positive direction.”
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