Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

There has already been a discussion about an Aquaponics Cafe. I am starting to think that it might be actually possible?

I'm starting to generate a bit of excess produce - I suspect some of you guys must be knee-deep in lettuce and tomatoes.

How hard would it be for Aquaponics people in each geographic region to form some sort of partnership and create an Aquaponic Cafe?

I suspect that things could be simplified by transporting the fish live (and purged) to the cafe and letting the fish continue its purging on site (so that there are less refrigeration and food preservation forms and procedures and hoops to jump through)?

If the approach was a vertical (ie a cafe), they you have less worries about losing your contract (but more worries about losing your customers....)

The issue of having to have a licence comes up again then -if you sell the fish you need a aquaculture licence or equivilant - and there are limitations about the transportation of live fish in some states too..
But I do like the idea - and having the fish THAT fresh wold be great!

Maybe if we could produce enough different products we could combine and setup a stall at farmers markets that are springing up everywhere..We could put it under a 'Aquaponics Food' banner. Good promotion of AP

Hi AM & ael,
There are health issues too for fish prep areas commercial, if not maintained stink after a while.
Not to mention you'd corner the market in FLIES.
Ok to clean fish for domestic/household amounts but going commercial I think it needs to be a proccess area plus the skill level of filleting.
Concept good though keep brain storming I want one too!
C1

Hey, that is just free food for the fish back home!

Some very valid points there - there are a lot of things to overcome and face in order to get something like this off the ground... but if ever there was a place to do it, this is it!

Interesting topic, let brain storm a little, i could well be interested in being part of it regardless of how big or small a part i play. My foucus over the past weeks has been " i wonder how much work there will be in A/C if we have an energy crisis

Does any one think that there would be a market in a farmer market stall for ....gee this is going to be hard to explain....bear with me.....

ok, you bring your fish live in a tank to the stall, people pick and pay for the fish, you place the fish in an ice water slurry for (how many minutes?) to kill it, and then pass it on to the customer, freshly dead ( ).

That way, no cleaning, no flies, no hygine issues.

Possible market due to "trendyness" "you-pick" and "freshness guaranteed becasue you just saw it alaive" LOL

just some ideas, might be silly.

Steve

I would be ideal for the people who enjoy freshly caught fish and have experienced killing and gutting fish. Most people will be put off with you killing a fish right in front of them, let alone gutting it. What is the differece between catching and gutting fish at sea and getting up early and catching/cleaning a few to take to the shop? It would solve the issue of transporting live fish...

Thats less of an issue imho than getting the cerification for food transport, a food transport vehicle, and health dept. accreditaion. Thats why i suggested the "live caught -sold whole" approach

I never thought of that.... all these rules and regulations...

see, we can skirt the regs by doing it tis way, and it a novel idea, so may become popular. maybe?

Why not set up some sort of class or school for aquaponics. TAFE let you run ACE courses which you write and submitt the couse and if they like it, they let you teach it. Not certified but hey, imagine being able to go a course on aquaponics...

Also... Get together a growers club and swap vegitables and fish. Im growing barra and Lettuce, your growing redclaw and beans... lets do a trade. A trade market of produce if you like...

As soon as you want to "sell".. Dept of fisheries and Aquaponics licences would be an issue. But youd go down that road if you wanted to go commercial. That what a aquaponics cafe would be, a commercial enterprise wouldnt it?

Cute idea!

and they get real sticky about these things too - they warned me a number of times about the selling item when I was looking into the legalities of putting an AP system up at school

Id better contact them. We were considereing that as a way to get rid of the produce. If you dont sell it, can you give it away? Im tempted to put it all back into a worm farm - bugger them. If i cant sell it or give the produce away from a school system - Ill put it back in to the system!

The fish we were just going to give back to the hatchery!

you can give it away, they only list selling your product as a no-no (I am referring to a school system specifically here now)..
Consider putting on a staff and/or student fish and salad/veg bbq - and if they want to "make a donation" towards your running costs, then all should be fine
As long as they dont pay for the fish (the veg is a different story, they did noit warn me about the veg side of things, just the fish and yabby)...
so a donation based fish bbq could be a great event for a school...
I would need to check better on this, but I think its okay if YOU kill the fish and the students do the prepairing and cooking (different groups get up in arm when kids are asked to kill animals (fish), even if they do it every second day anyways