October 28, 2013 — "We don't know the potential [for cobia] yet," says Brian O'Hanlon, founder and CEO of Open Blue Sea Farms, which is farming the white-fleshed species in submerged cages in the open sea off Panama. "What I can tell you is that nobody to date has developed a more aggressive approach to marketing the species."
Open Blue is currently selling cobia into the foodservice market in the United States, but has plans to sell it into Europe and Asia as well. Says O'Hanlon: "We are waiting for our third party processor's plant to be certified to ship into Europe. The updated target date for this is early November. Once we get the plant certified we will begin shipping samples to customers that are waiting. We expect our first shipments to Asia in 2014."
O'Hanlon began working with cobia in 1999 at the University of Miami in Florida. He then founded a company called Snapperfarm in Puerto Rico which produced cobia on a small scale for the U.S. market. "It was more of a demonstration project to prove the species, farming concept and market," he says.
Open Blue Sea Farms was only founded in 2007 but expects to harvest 1100-1200 metric tons (MT) of cobia this year. "We are on track to hit 2000 MT of harvest biomass in 2014," O'Hanlon says. "All of the fish are already stocked."
Ocean Blue farms cobia in what O'Hanlon claims is an ideal location 12 km off the Panamanian coast. "Our sites in Panama are the only sites that meet FAO's 'theoretical' criteria for open-ocean farming of cobia," he says. "The fish thrive offshore in a stable, clean environment that is always rich in oxygen. They struggle in near shore environments where the energy is lower, water quality is impacted from land run off and oxygen availability is variable."