The 'No Catch' Catch?

It has recently been announced that the company associated with the 'No Catch' cod fish farming exercise (consisting of an 'organic' cod farm and a cod hatchery) in the Shetland Islands (Johnson Seafarms Ltd) has gone into administration after generating £40m of debts in only 2 years(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/06/environment.ethicalfishing). This development was hailed at its launch as "the world's first organic cod farm" and its product received endorsements and orders from 'top London chefs', Carrefour, Sainsbury and Tesco. Given the initial enthusiasm and orders (it predicted it would be able to generate 30,000 tonnes of 'Britain's favourite fish' per year) it seems initially surprising that this has happened. There have been rumours that elements in the company have had a "luxurious way of doing business" (denied by a director) but the real source of the problems may lie with the fact that the cod is slow (about 3 years to mature) and expensive (fresh fillets currently retail at £20 per kg which is almost more expensive than wild caught salmon) to produce. The 'No Catch' cod were fed on "choice offcuts of mackerel and herring" that challenges (to some extent) their sustainable credentials. One would also have to admit (in spite of the support from the 'Highlands and Islands' body) that, being located in the Shetlands, greatly adds to the transport costs when taking the product to market and marketing the product. There are varied predictions about what may happen ranging from a Norwegian take-over of the more profitable salmon, sea trout and mussel farm elements of Johnson Seafarms but dropping the risker cod farming to a building on the progress made in cod farming by the company to enable "world whitefish supplies to adjust to climate change". It will be interesting to see how cod farming develops but there is no reason why the process cannot be done economically so long as the process is not 'hyped' and people make allowances for the characteristics and needs of the species.