Aquaculture: How Can RAS Profitability be Improved? A Call for Research Participants

By Dr. Sharon Gotteiner, CPA

Dr. Sharon Gotteiner is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) specializing in the assessment of the financial feasibility of new business ventures, business models, and deal structures. Dr. Gotteiner has extensive experience working with technology startups and established corporations worldwide, catalyzing strategic initiatives aimed at improving financial performance and enterprise valuation. Academic background: PhD in Strategic Management (UIC, Barcelona, Spain). Co-author of highly cited academic publications, including Fighting organizational decline: a risk-based approach to organizational anti-aging, Turnaround types, stages, strategies, and tactics: Putting things in order, and The OPTIMAL MBO: A model for effective management-by-objectives implementation.

What setups of RAS would yield higher financial margins? Statistics are now being collected. Share data and get data.

Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) often struggle to achieve strong financial performance. As new technologies emerge, new opportunities arise to improve profitability. Each technology comes with distinct capital expenditure (CapEx) and energy requirements—both of which play a pivotal role in RAS financial models. As a result, RAS viability depends on identifying the optimal combination of species (fish or shrimp) and the specific technologies applied.

 

ANNUAL SALES / CAPEX > 1 ?

Financial models developed by Dr. Sharon Gotteiner, CPA, indicate that RAS technologies with capital expenditure (CapEx) lower than annual sales are more likely to deliver attractive returns on investment (ROI). While this key performance indicator (KPI) is intuitively compelling, it requires empirical validation. In practice, validating the KPI involves running multiple simulations of a given technology across different fish and shrimp species, as well as across diverse geographic locations.

Why is this KPI applicable across geographies?

For most RAS facilities, both sales and capital expenditure (CapEx) inherently reflect local economic conditions. Sales—particularly ex-factory prices—are shaped by local demand for specific species, available alternatives, cost of living, competitive pressure from imports, and related market dynamics. CapEx, in turn, reflects local construction costs, labor rates, and the cost of equipment such as tanks, systems, and ongoing maintenance.

By combining sales and CapEx into a single KPI, local economic effects are largely normalized. This makes the metric relatively independent of geography and therefore comparable across regions and markets.

 

ANNUAL kWh / ANNUAL kg < 5 ?

Financial models further suggest that RAS technologies with annual energy consumption (kWh) below five times the annual kilograms sold are more likely to achieve acceptable profitability for agricultural operations. At first glance, focusing on energy consumption alone may appear overly narrow, given that RAS cost structures include many additional expense categories.

However, energy consumption serves as a strong proxy for stocking density (kg/m³). Higher stocking densities typically drive a cascade of additional costs, including:

• Higher labor requirements
• Increased feed volumes
• Greater nitrite, nitrate, and ammonia loads requiring treatment
• Higher dissolved oxygen costs

Survival Rates Included

The annual kilograms sold directly reflect the production capacity of any given RAS technology. This figure is net of survival rates, which themselves vary by technology. Some systems impose higher biological stress on fish or shrimp, while others incorporate isolated filtration setups that reduce the risk of pathogen transfer between tanks. Ultimately, these technological differences are captured in the final metric that matters most: the total annual kilograms sold.

 

Join the Research

This research seeks to clarify how RAS financial performance is influenced by different combinations of species and technology. Using the two financial ratios described above, we will evaluate multiple species–technology configurations and identify those that consistently outperform. The resulting insights can help strengthen the financial viability of the RAS industry and support the development of more economically sustainable alternatives to wild fishing.