Fish Master Premier Business Plan — Appendix D: Risk Register

Detailed risk register scoring likelihood and impact across biological, market, financial and regulatory risks with mitigations.

Appendix D: Risk Register

Jump to section

Risk

Assessment

Mitigation and residual position

Permit refusal or delay for Nile tilapia

Moderate likelihood, severe impact

Permit treated as a condition precedent to construction; province selected partly on permitting record; costed fallback to indigenous Mozambique tilapia with the plan re-based

Power interruption killing stock

High likelihood over five years, severe impact

Solar with battery backup sized for aeration and circulation, standby generation, low-water alarms and automated oxygen dosing. This is life support, not convenience

Feed price inflation

High likelihood, high impact

Bulk contracting, evaluation of imported feed, and continuous FCR management. A 20% feed price rise costs roughly R1.16m of Year 5 profit

Disease outbreak

Moderate likelihood, severe impact

Hatchery separated from grow-out, quarantine of all incoming stock, fish health plan, staged tanks limiting the loss to one cohort

Premium channel fails to absorb volume

Moderate likelihood, high impact

Offtake discussions concluded before grow-out is commissioned; live channel developed first; fillet line provides an alternative outlet at lower net realisation

Fingerling market weaker than assumed

Moderate likelihood, high impact

This carries most of the contribution, so it is tested first. If demand is thin, surplus fingerlings are grown out — a lower-margin but not fatal outcome

Genetic performance below assumption

Moderate likelihood, moderate impact

Broodstock sourced with traceable records; performance recorded and selected on; this is also the basis of the hatchery’s competitive position

Skills scarcity

High likelihood

Experienced aquaculture manager as a first hire; documented protocols; deliberate training programme. Aquaculture skills are genuinely scarce in South Africa

Grant claim rejected or delayed

Moderate likelihood, moderate impact

The grant is claimed in arrears and is not relied on for construction cash flow. A project that cannot be built without it should not be started

D.1 Pre-committed trigger points

Point

Trigger

Committed response

Month 8

Species permit not issued

Do not begin construction. Re-base the plan on Mozambique tilapia, which cuts harvest tonnage by roughly a quarter at the same infrastructure

First fingerling batch

Batch fails specification on sex ratio or survival

Do not commission grow-out. The hatchery is the profitable business and must work before capacity is added

First commercial harvest

FCR above 2.0 or mortality above 35%

Independent system and nutrition review before further stocking. Do not expand tanks against an unexplained problem

End of Year 2

Fingerling sales below 400 000

The contribution engine is not working. Halt grow-out expansion and test the fingerling market directly

End of Year 3

Debt service cover below 1.00x

Approach the lender for a fourth year of grace before the covenant is tested, not after

Any period

Aeration failure exceeding two hours

Immediate escalation and root-cause review. A power failure of a few hours can kill a tank; this is the fastest route to catastrophic loss