Alright, you can just talk to me.
Sounds good, this angle good right
here? Perfect, yep.
So, I guess let's start with
how did this venture come to go?
So you've got some family history
growing things, right?
Yeah. Yep.
So we, uh, all the way back,
uh my grandfather started a
greenhouse in Wausau
or Marathon, Marathon City,
Wisconsin. And,
um, then my uncles and dad and
aunt started working there
when they were growing up.
My dad then, um when I
was born in 1996 started his
own greenhouse, Dragonfly Gardens in
Amory, Wisconsin that was,
uh expanded to Turtle
Lake. And I inherited
that from him when I was in college.
We did end up selling that business,
but me and
my two high school friends,
the partners in this venture, Trent
and Tanner, we had always kind
of been interested in starting a
business. Trent has a
background in dairy farming.
He has a 1,500 acre dairy that he
lives on with his family.
Tanner's a gardener by trade, but we
were all, our first
thing we did together
entrepreneurially was trapping
actually, trapping,
skinning, selling the furs.
Not super related to that but we
knew we were most interested in
local food production and we love
the idea of fish farming because
of that feed conversion ratio where
one pound of
feed into a livestock animal can
get you close to one pound meat
from that animal and fish
shrimp are the close
to a one-to-one ratio that you can
get whereas a
Beef, cow, is more like nine
pounds of feed to one pound of meat,
pig more like seven to one,
and a chicken more like five to
one. So we were just really
interested in that, taking
advantage of our resources more.
We love that idea within fish
farming and kind of
combined that with the
knowledge of the problems of our
local fish populations, you know,
our walleye.
Populations have been decreasing
since the 1990s,
all sorts of different theories as
to why, but we really like the idea
of land-based fish
production.
So raising in fish
tanks where you utilize that
wastewater for something positive
like growing herbs and
salads and tomatoes like we do,
and also you're completely
controlled of what that fish eats.
And how fast they eat and you're not
taking anything out of local
populations.
So that kind of got us into our
prototype system.
We first were raising yellow
perch. We liked the idea of bringing
back the original Wisconsin
fish fry at Green Bay or
yellow perch out of Green Bay.
We, after a
few months of that, we did
raise some yellow perch, had plenty
of to but we
realized that while I were a little
bit more well-suited for
production in this way.
They take to the feed a lot better,
they're feed trained a lot easier,
they have a better survival rate
in that intensively rearing
larva culture where you're
actually spawning the fish.
And they're just, for lack of a
better term, more chill in the
tanks. They don't try to jump out of
the tanks, they don't as much
get up in the tubes of the tanks
like like perchwood and
we just know how highly
marketable and how highly
interested people are
in our area.
We had someone in from
Colorado yesterday and
it's interesting how people out west
have kind of a different idea of
walleye where there's certain rivers
in Utah that are in
Idaho that are actually
overpopulated with walleye they want
to take them out but
here there's such a centerpiece
of our
of our overall local culture,
honestly. What brings people to
certain towns or what brings
people the certain restaurants.
So that's why we kind of
focused in on the walleye as our
kind of centerpiece of our marketing
and what we can sell
to consumers.
But yeah, three years in
and.
30 grocery stores,
5 restaurants,
a few different food surface areas
and we're nearing
capacity of what
we can grow both with our fish and
plants so far.
So, as you,
what's your personal history with
wildlife? Because you talked about
that growing element,
you know, did you grow up fishing?
Yes, yeah, definitely grew up
fishing.
My old man was a little bit more
into pan fishing always.
I kind of fell more in
love with walleye fishing as I got
older, but no matter how much I
loved it, I'd still go out and best
case scenario, I'd catch one or two.
You know, I wasn't necessarily the
most skilled.
But grew up walleye fisher
fishing.
Me, Trenton Tanner, we had a
walleye, we had walleye trip
our senior year to Lake
Winnibagoshish.
That was you know, maybe
more motivational because of how
unsuccessful we were with catching
the fish.
But yeah, that goes back a long
ways.
But didn't start to try to
raise them until basically,
basically COVID.
It was a 2020 project that
we started raising the walleye.
So it was, with
growing and farming, it was plants
first before the fish, but we've
been interested while I,
throughout, I worked at a...
When I was in high school and
college, cleaned boats, cleaned
waters, managed that program for
Amory, Wisconsin,
did a shoreline cleanup service,
been a part of a lot of lake studies
and the amount of times I put a
Secchi disk down in a lake,
I've gotten bottom samples or
quite a few, but just worked
a ton with lakes throughout my life,
so.
So what is it about
walleye, you mentioned it
draws people in,
how is it that walleye has so much
more of a lure to people than
panfishing?
It's a great question.
I think it starts with
taste.
It's probably
the best tasting fish
filet you can get.
Whether it's that
different from a fresh bugle or
crappie, you could argue it.
But I think that's where it starts,
is the best-tasting fish.
It's beautiful, that
black and gold contrast.
And it goes back for
thousands of years.
You know, we have a lot of tribes in
the state that have histories of
when they're spawning in the rivers,
harvesting them that way or spearing
them.
So, historically it goes,
it touches people's palates.
Why they're more
interesting than northern
pike? Geez, it's a really
interesting question.
I like eating northern pike as well,
but
I'd say it's in the beauty
and the taste,
number one and number two.
Not sure which is first, but...
So you mentioned
how you can control
what goes into the fee,
part of what we're also looking at
is concerns about mercury
fee funds, so how important
is it for you and your customers
that you can offer something where
you can say there is no mercury
money, there is no concern about
limits on it?
Yeah, well, I think it's
everything.
More and more studies have come out
that we have microplastics in
everything. We have seen,
unfortunately, the main
source of
local-ish walleye in this area
are coming out of the Great Lakes, a
little bit further away from Canada.
But our Great Lakes unfortunately
have that history of industry
dumping into them.
And they're bathtubs, you know,
there's nowhere for that to go.
So we have had intensive
cleaning efforts,
like I think a lot of successes to
be proud of, but there's still
that limit.
Like my fiance just
had a child when she was pregnant.
I think this is a limit for
everybody, especially when you're
pregnant, you know, you don't want
to eat Great Lakes
fish more than once or twice a
month. Whereas for us, you know,
we think of fish, those
omega-3s, really healthy protein,
healthy fats too.
It's a really good addition to
our diet so the more that we can
add it in I think the better.
So controlling exactly what
water our fish are in, exactly
what they're eating, exactly how
much stress-free
just delivers the best possible
product that you can.
So that's kind of why we are
big proponents of that land-based
production of walleye.
How big can this get?
I mean, because right now you're
somewhat limited.
You've got a facility.
Can this get massive in
terms of producing walleye?
Can you bring back the walleye
fish product?
That's a great question and there's
certain there's definite economies
of scale.
There's like for one example
our fish
food the Europa 15 is
produced outside of the United
States right now especially
with what's going on with tariffs.
We have gone through some
efforts and other entities as well
trying to domesticate a
walleye feed because that's not an
option right now so that'd be
an easy economy of
scale right there if we tell.
Um you know
food producer x
that we can take well now we
can take a hundred thousand pounds
of feed next year it
will largely incentivize them to
get that recipe done that
non-proprietary recipe done for
us
there is and
we we hope to scale up
on this there's plenty of demand for
it. There's no other local
production of it.
You see some.
Frozen Canadian walleye in
grocery stores or restaurants
but even the price on that is going
up.
In the short term you know before
there's a lot of
genetic studies, strain studies,
improvements to food you know it
will continue to be a
premium product more like kind
of like buying a ribeye in the
grocery store but we
really love the idea of
hopefully more investment,
hopefully more R&D.
Institutes like the UWSP
NADF facility up in Bayfield
just do
irreplaceable
work because there needs to
be improvements to be able to scale
up, figure out where we can
improve growth
rates,
feed efficiencies and those types of
things.
Is it scalable?
Yes, are we going to do tomorrow?
Not yet, no.
But we
think both with the
utilization of each part of the
fish, utilizing their waste water,
trying to find resources within each
part the production is
where it becomes a
better option as we get bigger too.
So right now in your business model,
is the plants
are what's making everything work
and the walleye are coming along
with it, or do you hope
that the wall-eye will, you know,
profitably all by themselves as
well?
The plants drive most of our
revenue. You know, if you walk into
our facility, it's 10,000 square
feet and only 5%
is of the fish.
And you'd probably see our revenue
be kind of similar breakdown
as that works.
We would like to, going
forward, produce more
fish in that ratio than
plants, mostly because
of our established
partners.
Provide them with fresh greens,
pesto, whatever, we would
really like to continue our
distribution network but also add on
the fish to that because a huge
issue bottleneck with a
food business our side is that
distribution, just getting product
to the stores.
But then you add fish,
then you have nutrients too, and
then what do you do with those
nutrients?
So it may, We
will let our...
Once we reach that capacity,
in the back of our minds we're going
to add more fish, but then largely
let the market
demand what we do with
the rest of that space, whether it's
75% plants,
50% plants.
We'll kind of see what our customers
need at that time.
So where are the fish going in the
grocery stores, are they going into
restaurants, or where do they end up
going?
Fish, the Walleye are going
to some two
restaurants, we'll have a couple
restaurants that will do like a
Father's Day special, order 25
at a time, but mostly
it's direct to consumers so just
through our website we can drop it
off next day delivery for people.
I mean, I guess that is,
we talk about bringing back the fish
fry, you know,
we've gone to the Kiwanis
feed at Walleye Weekend and Fond du
Lac, and it's Canadian Walleye, and
you go to a restaurant that still
happens to serve Walleye and it is
Canadian Wallye.
I mean is it possible to,
if more of this works, to see that
being replaced by American Walleye?
I think so, and I think,
you know, as we were talking
a bit about food culture
and location specifically,
I think that Wisconsin
as a place that, you
know, is so central in
the walleye market, the wall eye
world, yet it's all Canadian
walleye.
Well, what if it becomes Wisconsin
walleye that's being served in
Wisconsin?
I think that becomes a whole...
Addition and a whole improvement
to our state, a whole other reason
for people to come, a whole another
reason for for people enjoy it
around here.
Less food miles, better product,
potentially.
So yeah, I do really see that being
the way forward where
when we think of a
Wisconsin fish fry, it's actually
a Wisconsin walleye produced
here in an ecologically friendly
way.
Yeah, I definitely see.
A future in that the
demand is already there, the
interest is there, it's just
figuring out the nuts and
bolts of how to get that fish from
this size to that size and
a low enough price point to be.
Competitive, but also we want to get
get it to a point where anybody
can afford this.
We don't want just the
just the cabins on Lake Mendota
or Grindstone Lake to be able to
buy their nice walleye.
We'd like everybody to beable to
buy a nice walleye maybe we can
supply school districts
then and other places that the
high quality protein is
even more important.
So that's interesting,
where should walleye ideally
fit into the price point?
Because right now, if you look
at what it costs to get a walleye
dinner at a restaurant, one of the
few that will still serve it, it's
probably 25 bucks or more,
at least, to get that.
It's equivalent to a steak,
maybe not a high-end steak,
but. So should walleyes be
ribeye, prime rib, or should it
be closer to roast chicken?
Where should that fall into that
scale in your mind Ideally,
the cost of going out and getting a
law idea should be comparable to
what.
I think, yeah, it's
absolutely, when you talk about
quality,
a premium idea of a product,
I do think it fits right in there
with a ribeye,
T-bone, whatever.
I think it makes sense to kind of
market it in that way and have it
in that realm
of product.
That doesn't mean I don't, wouldn't
like it to be able to be send out
bulk and, you know, a restaurant
could get it for 12
to 15 bucks a pound.
That'd be awesome too.
Uh, but it's yeah,
it's just the right now
the way it needs to be intensively
raised is going to just take that.
It basically has to fit into
that premium product.
You mentioned...
The NADF,
a lot of the research that looks at
walleye right now is focused on the
wild sites, on lakes and how
to increase them up there for
fishermen, tourists,
and anglers, and all the businesses
that live on that side of it.
And you're a very small
operation in that big of a billion
dollar scale on the
aquaculture side, but you do have
research looking that
helps you and can help
the wild. So we talk about the
importance of NADF and what they've
meant to you and how
like their research is kind of at
that nexus of like it's not just
what goes back in the lakes but what
can come to you too.
Yeah. And it's really cool because
they're so
like they're they're stocked fish
that are going to Lake Namacoggin.
Correct? Like they're, that's
potentially the same cohort of
fish raised in the same way that we
will have in our system as well.
So fish that were feed trained,
brought up in this very efficient
way, utilizing this feed
and then
can either go
into lakes or, or be,
Grow more into a filet
for food at home.
So I think it's really
important because we might find that
as we think about scaling up,
you might find you have to do both
just to make it economically work
because if you have
a, it's 14 months about
to get to that market size which is
about almost four times faster
than in the walleye.
So a huge deal but then once
you consider if you're starting
a facility.
And from zero to 14
months, you have nothing to sell
all the while.
You could lose fish.
There's all sorts of risks within
there. So how do you bridge that
gap? You could do specific things in
your investing, have your runway,
but really what makes the most
economic sense is to be able to have
fish where you can sell
them throughout.
You can get them to six to eight
inches. You can sell some to
a lake association because they need
10,000 walleye to stock and
Lake Shetak or whatever it is.
So the combination
and being able to do both with the
same kind of cohort of fish will
probably prove very important
for this industry.
Whether it's us or somebody else
scaling up to
tens of thousands or hundreds of
thousands of walleye in an
annual season rather than just
a couple thousand like we have right
now.
And that is
that is interesting that the
future of fish farming may
be in all industries Not just
what's going to end up on a table,
right? You know direct from a
freezer
Yeah, and you can hear me talking,
you know, it's right away.
You could be selling the small fry,
you could be sell an extended growth
fry.
Then you get into the filets
or large fry.
You know, Cabela's has to
fill up their tanks somehow.
You know maybe they'll be spend a
big chunk on a three pound walleye
or something.
But then once you filet them,
then the rest of the
fish can really be used.
We talked a little bit about that
while we were.
Fileting, whether it's for plant
nutrients, fish leather,
pet treats, you
can really take advantage of that.
And that's part of the reason why,
too, we try not to see anybody
as our competitors in this industry.
We're going to have to be partnered
with a lot of different businesses
here in Wisconsin just to
get everything we can out of that
walleye filet.
And each thing that we're able
to do, each piece of value.
Hopefully allow us to get the filet
price down as low as possible as
well.
Do you would you see
more likely success that?
A billion dollar company comes
in as they finally use it, you show
them, you show the way that this can
be profitable and scalable and then
some giant corporation comes in and
says, oh thanks for the roadmap,
now we can buy you out or now we can
do like, you know,
Land O'Lakes is just over Minnesota,
they are the only dog food
companies, pet food companies and
that's part of their distribution
model, they just plop
down the factory in Minnesota or
Wisconsin, and is that
what will get to the scale or is it
going to be small businesses that
grow themselves to that scale.
Yeah, there,
us personally, we definitely have
specific beliefs on
business ownership and
employee to ownership
relationships.
So we actually, there would be
a level where we wouldn't work
with someone else, you know, maybe
international ownership, something
like that, unpersonal,
that's where we would get away from.
But there is, yeah,
there's absolutely large.
Food distributors, food processors
in this area that
have expressed interest in it
at least.
Yeah, I could see
a Cisco or US
Foods, you know, these companies
that go through
hundreds or thousands of pounds of
Canadian walleye.
Well, maybe they can figure we don't
have, we can get rid of a couple of
Plainfuls and
we could produce it ourselves here.
I can see the interest being
there for sure.
Because again, there is the demand.
They already know they have to sail
and how much more sellable does
it become when
It's a Wisconsin product.
So yeah, I could see it being a
thing that happens in the future.
Whether it needs to be a big company
or not.
I don't necessarily think that's
the case.
I think it could be scaled
up as we go,
but when
you talk about investment, that's
probably the hardest question mark
on getting from day zero
where you don't have any fish
producing.
You start your facility,
and then you grow
walleye out to that 14 months.
How do you bridge that gap?
Because the regular agricultural
market has kind of shown the
progression that there's, if you're
a smaller family farmer or
a small farmer, you have to have a
homesick specialty.
Right.
If you're going to do like, petite
cheese or high-end quality
meats or grass-fed.
Otherwise, it's Catholic stuff.
Is that kind of the question mark
that's going to exist if aquaculture
is going to expand into walleye
and make it scalable?
Where the smaller ones have to
be more focused.
Yeah, instead of a large
hydroponic beam to let be up
in front of the back finish space,
as opposed to the small, deep
hole or something like that.
Right.
Yeah.
And you made a great point.
It's been since the
1920s, since farms
have been consolidated,
consolidated, consolidated, bigger
and bigger and you can
see the economies of scale there,
like the synergies when you have
a, and that's one thing we've
thought of, you know, we had
considered putting.
The walleye farm on
the same property as Trent's Dairy
Farm. We had considered that
because there are some synergies
there, but when you
talk about how focused you
should be on one thing or the other
with this grow in this
way, it's very enticing
to have
a little bit here, a little bit
there. Once you know how to
raise fish, you do get the general
idea of the nitrification process
there.
How you feed, how dense you can
make it, and then how you use their
waste water.
So then like salmon seems really
cool. Shrimp seems really too.
I would say
like a lot of things
in just production, the more
niche you could be focused,
the more you'll get efficiencies.
Just for an example, you know, if we
were raising something else besides
walleye, we could easily need
two different types of feed.
And then instead of buying a
full truckload, if
we scaled up, then it's two
pallets at a time.
So just for
one thing off the top of my head.
But I would say the more
you need to be pretty
focused.
So, for you, we saw you
net a couple of walleye,
lay them out, they're going to go
out in the pot tonight and have
a wonderful dinner.
Personally, is that just
as exciting as catching one on a
pole?
Or how does that compare for someone
like you, because most people on
the pole is the only way to get
them?
I think for me it's the
only thing that you can compare
the taste of when you just
catch them out of the lake and then
it's fresh right on
the pan.
It's arguably a cleaner filet even.
I probably get
more excited when someone else
eats the walleye that we raise.
If it's me eating it,
it's kind of a horse of peace.
Nice to catch it.
It's cool that I grew this,
whatever. But if it's someone else
enjoying it, it feels pretty cool to
be kind of doing this novel,
new-ish technologies
and grow strategies
and make a super healthy,
delicious product that someone else
is eating.
That's what gets me the most excited
about it probably.
So you mentioned before possibly
working with Red Cliff or some of
the other tribes, obviously we're up
in the ceded territory and
spearing has been issues as
far as one of those things that
people like to blame for population
decline of walleye lakes along
with a lot of other factors.
Have you seen a change in the
mindset of people when they talk
about walleye and the connection to
the tribes?
Well, I'd say to be
fair, I'm
28. So the times
where there was a lot of protests
and stuff going on at the bolt
landing does a little bit before my
time.
Um, but it does seem like it's
improving. You don't, you don't hear
people complain about it so much.
So Lake Tomahawk is a really
interesting example where they
shut off walleye both, uh,
keeping walleye, both the tribes and
sport fishermen. And thank you.
Amazing walleye fishery
now.
So I'd say there is improvements
you know like the Red
Cliff tribe specifically I've
seen them they
produce the numbers how many
fish they speared out of this
lake this lake and then they say
this is how many walleye we
spawned them to put back in those
lakes to help replace that so
I think through and through there's
more eyes on conservation.
I definitely wouldn't
make any claims that the decline
in walleye population is any one
thing, whether sport
fishing, spearing,
the lack of forage
fish, the lakes getting warmer.
I can't say which one it
is or which one is not, but
I think it's a combination of all of
them. But I do think
the eyes on conservation is
improving.
And I think something like this,
whether we get in
the business of stocking a
bunch of lakes with walleye,
I think it's a motivational
piece that people are more aware of
that the walleye populations, they
are declining, you know, and what is
it, what can we do about it?
Maybe a couple of people say, male,
instead of keeping that walleye I'll
go buy a walleye filet from
Aqua Garden.
But besides that, we just hope that
we're kind of helping.
Move along the conversation.
When you think about how much
money the state spends in
research and funding all the studies
for Moai and for
DNR enforcement and
the restocking and all of
those aspects together
for that one
species,
having you be this close to that
species, do you understand why
does that feel like an appropriate
investment, is it worth it when you
think of the big picture of.
All the attention on one
fish species.
Yeah, I think in
general, when you have that
much interest, you get a lot of
opportunity. It's almost like a
political opportunity
where whether it ends
up that someone in the state is
eventually raising $10 million
walleye or not.
Of all this work that's been done
from the Sommerfelds, from
UWSPNADF, Greg Fisher,
Tyler Ferkas, Emma Hauser.
Whether there's a million walleye
system or not, they will have done
so much that promoted walleye
conservation and aquaculture
in general of all these practices.
So I think there's value
in just building that knowledge,
building those conversations.
And we do need to do something
with fishermen
do take out thousands of walleye
every single year.
And then how are we replacing those
Spawning that's also getting
potentially worse.
So, whether, I'm not saying we have
the answers or the best answers, we
have some answers and hopefully
those answers will just, you know,
exponential growth will get better
and better,
better and data and,
you now, hopefully just
overall improve local populations as
good as we can.
But if tomorrow, the state
and all the industry, whole
stakeholders said, you know what,
it's just not worth the amount of
money, we're gonna
let, you're gonna honor the wall I
do, the wall that I do.
If you want to fish, there's bass.
There's bad fish, there's something
else, there'll be fish in them.
Would the state be better off or
would we have lost something
critical?
Yeah, I think, you know,
why...
I mean, what? Why law?
Why walleye?
Right, yeah.
And what would we lose without
them?
And it's hard to quantify, you
know, how many people are going to a
restaurant to get the walleye,
how many are going up to Hayward
this weekend to fish for walleye.
How many people going to Lake
Winnebagochish or
the Rainy River to fish for
walleyes.
We're talking a big part
of an economy for a lot of rural
towns, you know, what else
brings people to many of these
rural towns?
People don't only go to the lake
and catch a couple of
fish, they stay at the hotels,
they spend money at the marina,
stop at restaurants, whatever, so I
think it's a
connecting piece of our state
of our area and
other places don't have it so
anyone can argue whether you
know a red snapper in the Florida
Keys is better than the walleye in
the Midwest but it's ours.
It's ours, it's our culture
so I think
promoting that is good
and important as
an endeavor as ever.
And it can't just replace it by
saying go catch a bass or a crappie
instead.
Right, yeah,
something will get lost.
If someone says, oh,
bluegills taste actually just as
good.
That doesn't really mean anything to
anybody. That's great information,
but it's not gonna make someone else
drive to a different lake and
invest there.
And that's not what it's all about
either.
I think us
in this room,
all our partners, so
many people who we work with.
It's the time spent with their
grandpa. It's a time spent with
their dad, they're going out and
they're trying to
catch walleye. It doesn't super
matter.
We only have so much time
now to spend with each other.
So I think these things
that are bringing together,
without it, you lose some of that.
And you've got a newborn.
Yup, yeah, six
weeks old right now.
So, you know, hopefully in a year or
two, maybe he'll be catching some,
no.
But that is something you think
about, right?
Absolutely, yeah.
Yeah. Think about how to,
yeah, what am I gonna do with
my son when he's a little
bit older?
You know, everyone has their own
interests and not
all the time parents'
interests align with kids.
So, just one more thing to do
together. I think that's amazing.
I mean, you probably already
envisioned the first time that, you
know, he's got a wall out.
Right. Yes.
And the other thing too, is like,
when you look at all of the
conserva- not all, but most
of the conservation in land
or water, especially here in
Wisconsin, who is responsible for
it, it's fishermen and it's hunters,
people that have been taught to
interact with the land,
get, get uh, food production
out of it.
They're the ones who really want to
protect it.
You know, they're the ones who
invest in public lands
or, you know, these research
projects, whatever.
And a lot of this doesn't happen if
there's not that interest in
fishing, if there is not the
interest in hunting.
The ways to connect to the
land or water,
that connection just doesn't happen
without it.
Anything else that you want to bring
up. We've talked about a lot of
things here.
I'm sure I'm going to forget and
think about it in 10 minutes, but
yeah.
Alright, we're
going to just be quiet for
about 30 seconds, just
so we can capture the sound of the
fridge and the equipment.