Land-Based Aquaculture Startup Acadia Harvest Prepares To Scale Up In Maine

FRANKLIN — Ed Robinson looks down at an empty 360,000-gallon steel and concrete tank and imagines it filled with water and teeming with California yellowtail, a subtropical fish prized in sushi bars for its smooth, buttery texture and mild flavor.

“Imagine 30,000 to 40,000 yellowtail in here. Wow!” said Robinson, CEO and chairman of Acadia Harvest, a startup company that is developing a land-based, indoor fish farm to raise black sea bass and California yellowtail.

If successful, the company will have the only commercial yellowtail fish farm in the United States. This month it made big strides toward that goal by winning two grants – $657,000 from the National Science Foundation to develop alternative technology to help the company build a commercial-scale operation with zero fish waste, and $367,500 from the Maine Technology Institute to complete work on that big tank.

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