Another First for Hawaii Aquaculture

Another First for Hawaii Aquaculture

Honolulu, HI - (11/14/00): Hawaii is rapidly becoming recognised as a center of excellence and innovation in aquaculture, whether its the leading edge science of the Oceanic Institute or private enterprises like Aquasearch and Cyanotech on the Big Island driving microalgae technology. It is appropriate then that these Islands should be home to yet another world first in aquaculture: an internet resource for the aquatic feed industry.

Behind all aquaculture development is feed and nutrition; it is the unseen foundation upon which the entire future of this promising industry, the world's fastest growing agribusiness, rests. Yet up until now the feed manufacturers have had no recognition as a separate sector, falling somewhere between the animal feed industry, which sets its regulations and aquaculture, which describes its market. Without a trade association or dedicated media, aquaculture feed producers have had a hard time finding technical and market information.

Aquafeed.com was the brain child of Suzi Dominy. A publishing professional from the UK, she had run a string of international magazines for animal feed, food technology and agribusiness for 15 years before coming to Hawaii and was acutely aware of the information black hole in aquafeeds.

"I knew what the industry needed", she said, "an internet portal: a one-stop resource for people looking for ingredients, technology and information about aquaculture feeds and feeding. I just didn't have enough internet knowledge to know how to make it happen and almost gave up on the idea."

Susan says what happened next was a "pure chicken skin moment". "My husband invited a colleague over for dinner and he brought his brother, who had just arrived from the mainland. It came to light that he was a webmaster and owned a slew of aquaculture related domain names that he had a vague notion of creating websites around someday. One of those was Aquafeed.com."

That was a year ago. Susan and her new partner, William Bullis, launched Aquafeed.com in February 2000. It has become the prime resource for the sector and the recognised voice of the industry. It also provides a means of communication between feed manufacturers, their suppliers, their farmer customers and those conducting the research, teaching and framing regulations in this field.

On November 1, a year to the day that it became a business, Aquafeed.com has become a Limited Liability Company. "This move reflects the level of confidence we have in the website. We are meeting a real need in the market," Susan Dominy says. "Its not easy - there isn't anything else out there to draw on - but that is why Aquafeed.com is so useful. There is still so much more to do, so much potential for this website. We are now actively seeking financial backing to allow us to move up to the next level of development"

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For further information contact: Suzi Dominy
Email: editor@aquafeed.com