Umami has operations in Croatia and Mexico which both farm the highly prized Bluefin tuna. The operations are similar in many ways.
Bluefin tuna farming is done on the open water, usually not far from land. The fish is farmed in round holding pens, 100-150 feet across, 60-80 feet deep.
What sets Umami’s operations apart from most of the competition is the ability to farm the fish for extended periods of time, up to 42 months. We have secured pristine locations for farming the fish year-round and feed our tuna only with the fish it would else eat in the wild—no chemicals, drugs or additives are involved.
Our tuna farming operations involve the following steps:
Catching and Towing
Our sailors use a purse seine—a large net that encircles a school of fish—to capture wild Bluefin Tuna. They transfer the tuna to cages and tow them to farm sites at a very slow pace – often only one knot – to minimize damage to and mortality of the fish.
Farming
Tuna are transferred into the circular holding pens. They are fed small pelagic fish, such as sardines, mackerel, herring and anchovies six days a week and allowed to grow over a period up to 3 ½ years.
Harvesting
Once tuna are big enough for harvesting, they are captured from the holding pens, harvested in a special manner and loaded onto vessels for shipping to market. We sell both frozen and fresh, but the vast majority of our production is sold frozen.
