Fish Flying High

Apollo Aquaculture Group CEO Eric Ng is the first in the world to farm fish in a high rise, ensuring the longevity of Singapore’s fish industry.

- Wendy Kay

NAME:

Eric Ng

COMPANY:

Apollo Aquaculture Group

POSITION:

CEO

LOCATION:

Singapore

On the surface, farming marine fish inland seems a little preposterous when you live on an island surrounded by the ocean. But for Eric Ng, who wanted to diversify his father’s ornamental fish business into providing seafood, it made perfect sense. Particularly as sea-based farming in Singapore was being impacted by harmful algal blooms and more stringent government regulations.

The CEO of Apollo Aquaculture Group (AAG) wanted to head away from the sea and closer to the communities he fed, but with land scarce and expensive, he needed to think outside the square. Or indeed up. “Fish farming has traditionally been carried out by the sea where you have floating cages,” Eric explains. “But, gradually, these operations were being closed due to environmental issues. So while farms were moving away from coastal regions, the logistics of operating and maintaining them on vast areas of land were killing the business.

“So, I started to think about building an entire farming facility in a vertical block, stacked floor by floor, like my ornamental fish tanks are stacked on top of each other. Vertical stacking would enable us to control every floor very neatly and very accurately.”