Fish farm staying afloat despite virus outbreak

That business is aquaculture, which is essentially the farming of fish. We checked in to see how the pandemic is affecting one aquaculture operation in eastern North Carolina.

Carolina Classics Catfish Farm near Ayden has 27 ponds spanning 270 acres. It employs 81 people, and so far, it has avoided any layoffs.

Company president Rob Mayo says they sell mostly fresh catfish filets, "primarily in the mid-Atlantic, northeast market over to the Chicagoland area, and in eastern Canada.”

Workers use tractors to pull nets to corral the fish. Then they use a crane to scoop them up and drop them into water tanks on the back of a truck. The fish are then taken to a nearby processing plant.

The company sells millions of pounds of catfish a year to grocery stores and restaurants. But the pandemic has put the latter on hold.

“When restaurants began to close, our catfish shipments to food service essentially stopped,” Mayo says.

That’s cut business by about a third, but Mayo says sales to Whole Foods and Harris Teeter stores have remained strong. So have sales at the company’s online store, sizzlefish.com, which Mayo describes as "kind of like Omaha Steaks, only for seafood. "

"That’s what’s allowing us to keep a full staff employed right now," Mayo says. "That business is way up.”

Mayo expects that to continue, even after the pandemic.

“I believe people’s habits are going to change about how they source food to some extent," he predicts.

And that could help keep this fish farm afloat for many years to come.

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