January 15, 2015 — Maine’s growing aquaculture industry has matured to the point where fish farms are finding it easier to get loans from commercial lenders and are attracting capital from private equity investors, according to industry leaders and financial experts.
Maine’s clean, productive marine environment and the state’s reputation for producing quality food products has created a “perfect match” for investors looking for sustainable ways to meet the surging global demand for food, said John Pavan, owner of Altezza Advisors, a Brunswick-based firm that has invested in three Maine aquaculture companies.
“There is a lot of growing momentum in this space in Maine,” said Pavan, one of the nearly 100 investors, researchers and industry officials attending Maine’s first aquaculture forum devoted to research and development Wednesday.
The forum, held in Portland at the Holiday Inn by the Bay, will be followed Thursday and Friday by the larger Northeast Aquaculture Conference & Exposition at the same location. It will be attended by about 450 people from as far away as Virginia and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.