Australis Aquaculture, a US company, invested 200 million USD to farm barramundi in Khanh Hoa, bringing this little-known fish to the world's dinner tables.
At a BQQ restaurant on the corner of Ngo Thoi Nhiem Street, Nha Trang, a small group of American businessmen often gather to enjoy home-style dishes. On the dining table, in addition to hamburgers, chicken salad, grilled pork rib sausages, and draft beer, there is often pan-fried sea bass, one of the restaurant's signature dishes. The group of four people come from different regions of the United States, but own businesses in Vietnam.
In this group of expatriate Americans, some are enthusiastic about business, some are humorous and good at joking. Josh Goldman is a calm person, often giving wise advice to his friends. Talking to Forbes Vietnam, the 60-year-old businessman claims to be one of the first people to bring sea bass to restaurant tables, not only in Nha Trang but also in many places around the world.
Founded in Massachusetts (USA) in 2004, two years later, Josh Goldman's seafood company Australis built its main farming facility in Van Phong Bay (Khanh Hoa). With a total investment of more than 200 million USD in Vietnam to date, Australis has quickly become the largest seafood exporter in this locality. And it took just over 15 years to take the position of the largest exporter of barramundi in the world, according to a report by the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), a financial institution under the US government.
Each year, Australis produces nearly 10,000 tons of finished barramundi, mainly exported to the US for large food retail corporations such as Cotsco and WholeFoods. The founder of Australis refused to disclose the exact figure but revealed that the company is approaching a revenue of 100 million USD/year, with sales and output increasing by an average of 20-25% each year. Josh Goldman said that, except for the first year of intensive investment, the business has always been profitable throughout the years of operation in Vietnam.
Australis has made such rapid progress thanks to its high level of technology that helps minimize risks in farming and its products have high export value. The company's marine farming model (sea farming) is considered promising, a future model for Vietnam's aquaculture industry, which is increasingly facing many risks from climate change and environmental pollution.
A bioengineer by training, Josh said he was one of the first to research recirculating aquaculture (RAS) technology in the early 1980s while still in school. This technology later became popular worldwide, as the aquaculture industry moved towards industrial scale production.
Josh also started his own company right after graduating with a pilot research company for fish species suitable for recirculating aquaculture technology such as tilapia, yellow perch, and striped bass. His startup at that time provided solutions for building commercial land-based marine fish hatcheries in the US and Israel.
After selling the company in 2000, John switched to consulting on RAS technology part-time. The bioengineer traveled to many countries, continuing to find and experiment with a new marine fish species that, according to Josh, “fitted with his vision of the future of aquaculture.” “I spent three years experimenting with 30 different species of fish, trying to find the right balance between growth time, meat quality, nutrition and resistance of the farmed fish,” says Josh Goldman. “All of this is set against the backdrop of climate and environmental change.”
With his short haircut, sparse eyebrows, faded jeans and slow speech, Josh Goldman’s interviewing style is reminiscent of “a Jeff Bezos version of aquaculture.” With his layered, scientific explanations, Josh believes that global commercial successes like Norwegian salmon or Vietnam’s iconic catfish will eventually run out of room to farm. “Rising sea and river temperatures will shrink the natural habitat of wild salmon, making it harder for them to find food. Salmon raised on offshore farms are also experiencing increasing mortality rates,” says Josh.
Regarding pangasius, the fish that made the name of the Mekong Delta's seafood industry, the CEO of Australis believes that salinity and water pollution will negatively affect the farming area. In addition, he also assessed that while Norway gains a large profit from only one salmon product, Vietnam exports many types of fish and shrimp but in general, they have low commercial value.
It took the American seafood expert four years to find barramundi, a commercial alternative fish that he jokingly calls "salmon of the tropics". Josh Goldman said: "The future of seafood will be aquaculture in warm seas. Barramundi is both valuable and can live in both fresh and salt water, and will gradually replace salmon in cold seas, becoming the new national fish".
Barramundi, or sea bass, is a large fish that lives in estuaries and goes to the sea to spawn, usually living in subtropical and tropical waters of Australia and Southeast Asia. Commercial barramundi is usually about 40–50cm long, weighs 7–10kg, and has white meat that is sweet and fatty and rich in nutrients.
Notably, the calorie content is half that of salmon, suitable for weight loss diets. The succulent meat texture and high oil content make barramundi dishes easy to cook, easy to eat and beautiful. The world's largest barramundi farmer also compared that barramundi raised in saltwater has firmer meat than wild fish and especially does not have a muddy smell.
Returning to the US, Josh opened Australis Aquaculture with investment capital from private funds. He quickly successfully bred barramundi using the RAS system on land and began to calculate the commercialization of the product.
Australis's sea bass farm in Van Phong Bay, Khanh Hoa
In 2004–2005, barramundi was virtually unknown in the United States. Australis’ initial customers were a group of Australian barramundi fishing and traveling enthusiasts. Josh also leveraged his network of celebrity chefs to market the product and quickly gained the attention of retailers. As orders grew, a new need arose: expansion. “I realized that it would be impossible to expand with just a land-based RAS model because the cost was too high and the speed was too slow,” Josh recalls.
He decided to conduct a survey to where barramundi was growing, such as Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Australia and Vietnam. Josh also chose to survey the sea farming area, not only because of the meat quality but also because the deep sea water environment was cleaner and more stable, with less biological risks than river and lake water. “Khanh Hoa’s Van Phong Bay is a great location because it is a deep bay, has a large area and no rivers flowing into it,” Josh explains.
In addition to the ideal habitat conditions, Josh Goldman also considered the human factor when investing. There is the Nha Trang Oceanographic Institute, a facility with rich experience in fish breeding. From this institute, Australis found the first experts and cooperated in researching antibodies to treat diseases in barramundi. Not only that, Josh also found many suitable processing facilities in Khanh Hoa, which used to process ocean tuna but gradually reduced capacity when the fish catch decreased.
With the right time, place and people, Josh poured more than 50 million USD into the Vietnam branch. Most of it was invested in two categories: a hatchery, a nursery on land and a commercial farm with 50 net cages for fish to swim freely in the sea. In addition, investing in genetic improvement for breeds and the world's leading modern automatic feeding system.
Josh said that the biggest cost for a fish farm is food, followed by fish mortality. “So only by converting feed effectively by always feeding the right amount of fish, avoiding excess causing pollution, waste and how to breed better genetics, can you bring in big benefits,” Josh said.
Profitable after only one year of operation, Australis continuously reinvested, adding capital to expand production capacity. He raised capital in the form of convertible loans from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), DFC and the Finnish Industrial Cooperation Fund (FinFund).
Globally, according to market research company Market Stats Ville (USA), by 2023, the barramundi market will reach a value of 960 million USD, growing an average of 5% per year. Australis continues to lead the market share, with the US being its largest market. According to the company’s own research, demand from this market has nearly tripled in the past five years, exceeding 30% per year. Josh Goldman said they are actively marketing in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and have begun supplying fish to major customers in China and Japan.
One of the challenges in expanding production is the need for clean water. Josh analyzed that Vietnam's coastline is long but there are very few places that are well protected from pollution from industrial or other farming activities. "Between the risk of pollution and disease transmission in the nearshore area and the risk of storms offshore, in my opinion, storms are technically easier to solve," Josh compared.
Josh shared his experience that Vietnam’s aquaculture industry is diverse but fragmented, which is one of the reasons why environmental protection is difficult. There are areas where 30–40 different fish species are farmed at the same time, making it difficult to industrialize the industry according to a common standard. Besides the water source, another difficulty is the issue of macro-management.
In fact, the master plan of the new Van Phong economic zone does not allocate space for marine aquaculture. Instead, a large part of the area is reserved for mega resort real estate projects, financial service centers with a scale of up to tens of thousands of apartments, villas, and hotel rooms.
Recently, Australis announced that it will invest an additional 100 million USD in the next 10 years, first expanding the sustainable fish farming model, bringing the output to the licensed ceiling of 50 thousand tons/year. Next, the company will open more fish farms further offshore, first choosing the vicinity of floating islands outside the bay area, to collect more experience and data on offshore aquaculture.
Predicting the future 30 years, Josh Goldman believes that climate change will reshape the global food system. He cited research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which stated that wild fish catches in tropical countries will decline by 40% between now and 2050. This process will certainly be a turning point that will change the livelihoods of tens of thousands of fishermen and the development of the seafood processing industry.
“The decline in traditional fish supplies while the global demand for seafood is increasing, will be an opportunity for Australis and the marine aquaculture industry to seize, leading Vietnam towards a more prosperous, healthy and sustainable future from the sea,” Josh Goldman concluded.
According to forbes.baovanhoa.vn (https://forbes.baovanhoa.vn/australis-mo-khoa-nguon-loi-nuoi-tu-bien)
