Benzinga | Jan 5, 2022 08:27AM EST

Blue Star Foods RAS Division Announces H2-2021 Operating Metrics For Existing Production Facility

Taste of BC Aquafarms, Inc., (Taste of BC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Star Foods Corp., (NASDAQ:BSFC) ("Blue Star"), an integrated Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) seafood company, is releasing key operating performance metrics (from July 1st, 2021, through December 31st, 2021) that it believes will help shareholders understand their Recirculatory Aquaculture System business more clearly.

The company previously announced certain operating results for the six months ending June 30th, 2021, on July 20th, 2021. It is the expectation that Taste of BC will be announcing this type of data every six months.

"We are very pleased with the consistency of the production, as well as the quality of the fish being created" said John Keeler, CEO of Blue Star Foods Corp. He further continued, "We encourage investors in the space to look at our operating metrics and compare them to other RAS farm projects."

Ben Atkinson, the President of Taste of BC added, "We are happy to maintain the production statistics we had in the first half of the year, which are consistent with our expectations. Our focus is to continue this level of production at this first facility, as we build out our next, larger, 1,500 metric ton facility. We have made noteworthy progress towards that end, having recently secured the site of this larger-scale land-based steel-head salmon farm on Deep Bay, British Columbia. We believe we have the right formula to scale this in a significant way over the next several years, with an internal goal of 21,000 metric tons by 2028."

Average Fish Harvest Weight

* Over the last 6 months, ending December 31st, 2021, the average fish harvest weight has been 2.057Kg. The company targets a minimum of weight of 2kg for its Steelhead Salmon product. Each specific fish species has a different target weight, and for refence, open net Atlantic Salmon generally has an average harvest weight target weight of approximately 4.5kg(1).

Average Harvest Downgrade Percentage

* Over the last 6 months, ending December 31st, 2021, the total harvest downgrade percentage was 1.5%. This metric measures the number of fish at harvest that we did not bring to market at full price in the last stage of the lifecycle.

Average Feed Conversion Ratio

* Over the last 6 months, ending December 31st, 2021, we have achieved a feed conversion ratio (FCR) of 1.12KG Feed/Kg, versus the industry standard for open net FCR of 1.2 KG feed/kg(1).

(1) Certain industry statistics including Open net Atlantic salmon average harvest weight and industry standard for open net FCR were obtained from the Mowi Handbook (2019).