Salmon farmer Atlantic Sapphire moves toward major expansion

An aquaculture complex near Homestead is about to get a financing boost that will lead to production growth from last year’s 4,400 metric tons of fresh-water bluehouse salmon to a projected 25,000 tons of salmon in two years and a long-term target of 220,000 tons a year.

Miami-Dade commissioners are poised this week to reapprove the issuance of $250 million in bonds to continue the expansion of Atlantic Sapphire USA, which began construction of its indoor salmon production facilities in 2018 and has been expanding production ever since.

The project has grown to the point that the world’s largest producer of fish feed is preparing to build a production facility nearby to supply Atlantic Sapphire’s growing needs.

The bonds for Atlantic Sapphire were approved in May 2024, but the Miami-Dade County Industrial Development Authority did not issue the industrial development revenue bonds in time to meet the Internal Revenue Service’s one-year window, so the process has been restarted. 

The primary use of the bonds will be to build wastewater treatment and disposal facilities to serve the fish farming project. In addition to the bond financing, county documents state that Atlantic Sapphire plans to provide $100 million in capital to complete the second phase of its expansion. The current phase has a ceiling of about 9,500 tons of annual production capacity.

The growth plan of the Norwegian-owned fish-farming complex, if achieved, would produce at build-out 1 billion servings of salmon a year at what would be the world’s largest aquaculture facility.

Atlantic Sapphire USA is based on about 20 acres at 22275 SW 272nd St., where it now employs 180 people and projects hiring about 100 more as it completes its scheduled expansion. The parent company, Atlantic Sapphire ASA, is listed on the Oslo, Norway, Euronext Oslo Stock Exchange.

Neither the Miami-Dade County Industrial Development Authority nor the county would have any liability for repayment of the bonds for Atlantic Sapphire.

Bluehouse salmon stay in one location through their growing cycle, swimming through a series of tanks simulating growth in nature.

Construction of the second phase of Atlantic Sapphire’s own growth has begun, and the company has design and construction contracts.

Atlantic Sapphire originally raised its fish in Denmark but moved all operations to Homestead. Atlantic Sapphire’s first bluehouses were built and refined in a small village in Denmark, and European investors still constitute a majority of its shareholders. The company says its Homestead bluehouse contains all facilities needed for salmon’s growth, from egg hatchery to grow-out-tanks to harvest processing.

As Atlantic Sapphire grows, the world’s largest producer of feed for farmed fish plans to spend $80 million to build a feed mill near Homestead and hire 50 local workers to supply the neighboring salmon farm.

In May the county approved $1.5 million in targeted jobs incentives if Netherlands-based Skretting builds and runs its feed mill here. The company is the largest of its type in the world.

Skretting three years ago signed an agreement to be the main fish pellet supplier to Atlantic Sapphire. Skretting now supplies Atlantic Sapphire here from a Canadian feed mill it operates.

Feed is Atlantic Sapphire’s largest cost component. Atlantic Sapphire executives told Miami Today in 2021 that having a local feed source would provide a huge saving in transportation and logistics. Concerns about a tariff on imports from Canada could also favor local fish feed production.

Skretting manufactures feed for more than 50 species of fish and shrimp and operates in 42 nations. Its parent is Nutreco. Its 60,000-square-foot South Dade plant would be an $80 million investment.

“Skretting will support Atlantic Sapphire’s ambition of continuously innovating towards high-quality, cost-competitive feeds that meet all the requirements of the bluehouse salmon while using zero marine ingredients in the diet and maintaining high levels of healthy Omega-3s in the finished product,” Therese Log Bergjold, Skretting’s CEO, told Miami Today in 2022. Ingredients of the feed, a Skretting spokesman said, generally consist of vegetables, marine and sometimes animal ingredients.

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