The present report is a case study on profitability and production costs of using the Danish model fish farm concept in the Finnish production environment (including market, cost structure, climate). For such conditions, an isolated building is needed for temperature control, but we also calculated a case where the fish tanks are not placed in a building, which will reduce the annual fish production.
Production cost was to 4.48€/kg gutted 500 gr rainbow trout. Feed cost was the highest cost factor with 31% of the cost. Second highest costs were investment deprecation with capital costs, together 21% of the production cost. Therefore efficient use of the investment by temperature control and especially investment need for isolated building become important cost factors in colder climate. Electricity cost that is generally highlighted as one of the disadvantages of RAS farming, is not among the main cost factors in the Danish Model farm concept.
Finally, the regional market price is of utmost importance since the production cost will be higher than the current price at the highly competed European markets. We assumed a producer price 4.50 €/kg in the Finnish market.
