Commercial Aquaponics in Florida

[Dan Ponton]

Does anyone have a list of the commercial Aquaponics companies in Florida. If they have a company name and sell fish and vegetable and file taxes, then they would qualify as commercial I think

Green Acre Organics

MorningStar Nursery

Those two come to mind

[Dan Ponton]

Forgot to include this link in case anyone is interested.

http://myfwc.com/license/aquaculture-certificate/aquaponics/

[TCLynx]

Well Green Acre is now Green Acre Aquaponics and off the top of my head they are the only really publicly recognized on the internet so far in Florida doing farming/buying club as their main source of income.

(when people claim that they are getting loads of income from trainings, don't buy it, it costs a heck of a lot to produce a training, it isn't like all the fees for the training are going into the trainers pockets, and doing a few trainings a year doesn't subsidize a farm that isn't paying it's bills let alone support a family when going and doing the trainings means you then have to pay some one to tend the farm while you are off doing the trainings.)

Morning Star is really more of a mission training center and selling produce and fish is not their primary operational goal but I would say they are large enough to deserve a mention.

Green Sky Growers counts as commercial of a sort though they are definitely on the bleeding edge.

And my own operation Aquaponic Lynx LLC has been selling produce and plants and I have the aquaculture permit to sell fish though I don't have the facilities to clean them for people so haven't had very many buyers who wanted to take them home and do the cleaning themselves.  Anyway, Aquaponic Lynx LLC is still small and new enough as a farm that I'm not making claims about it being financially successful enough as a farm yet to set as an example.

Sahib's Urban Research farm may or may not meet your definition of commercial and it is more of a research goal rather than selling produce or fish.

I know there are some other operations out there but I think most of them are too busy farming to be much of an internet presence.  And then there are a few others that have been in the farming side commercially around Orlando for a while that may be toying with adding aquaponics to their current operations and some others that have been doing aquaponics on the side in addition to running a buying club.  And sometime in the near future I hope Ryan gets Chatterson Farms up and running because that will likely be a good showcase, but he is still under construction in his spare time outside of his full time job.

And then there are some people I know who sell produce from their systems at farmers markets though I don't think they have a company name and are not claiming commercial status in any way.

[Dan Ponton]

Thanks,

I am putting together a business plan for a commercial aquaponics business and was wondering how many there were in Florida. I spoke to a professor at UF here in Gainesville and was told they did research back in the 1970's when this was just developing, but was not sure if any of those people were still around. He'd going to look into it for me.

You would think aquaponics would be further along in 40 years.

[TCLynx]

In some cases people may not be thinking of it as aquaponics but as some form of integrated aquaculture and so they are not showing up on the radar of people looking for "aquaponics" operations.  Part of the problem is food is so cheap here in the US so it is really difficult to get a wholesale level aquaponics operation off the ground with such low margin on wholesale sales and such a high initial start up capital investment.

[Dan Ponton]

I believe your correct. I am not thinking of a commercial wholesale operation. I guess I am thinking more like an urban "bodaga" selling produce and fresh fish, with an aquaponics system  in the back producing the goods.

A fish and vegetable stand where the fish are cleaned to order.

For my retirement in a few years.

[TCLynx]

I don't think I know of anything in the US running quite like you describe as an "urban bodaga" with aquaponics.

Some of the operations like growing power might be almost like that in a way but that isn't profitable, they are a non profit and definitely dependent on donations and volunteer labor.

Definitely learn what you can about the food establishment and food service licenses to be able to clean and sell fish on site since that will cost a bit and you would need a good many clients to even cover the yearly fees involved in the aquaculture certificate ($100 for native species it is more if doing restricted species I think) The food establishment or commercial kitchen inspections (not sure the price tag there) Food Safety manager training/certification (not sure I think I heard like $400 somewhere) and the business license (that will vary by county/city and buisness) not to mention the property taxes, insurance, electricity, water and other equipment/supplies to run the operation.

Gotta have a busy site where you would have a lot of customers to likely make it worth some of the extra expenses to process/sell fish.

A set up where you are only selling the fresh unprocessed produce will likely be easier since you don't need a huge amount of fish to grow a rather large amount of plants and to do an operation large enough to guarantee you have enough fish to be selling lots of them each week to cover the added costs of the food handing licenses, permits, fees and commercial kitchen facilities to do the fish cleaning means the aquaponic operation would have to be rather large.

There is a produce stand near my place (out in the country though) that is struggling and they are an organic blueberry farm in addition to selling local produce from local farms.  They are really struggling.  This would definitely not be an operation you could run from just anywhere and just a busy street is also no guarantee that people will stop.  It needs to be in a location where people are likely to stop, not just drive by thinking they should stop sometime to check it out.

[Teresa N Florida]

You are right on the money TCLynx.  The cost of running this type of business (or any business for that matter), is extremely high these days.  Also keep in mind some of your fees and costs are renewed annually.