Fish Master Premier Business Plan — Management and Governance

The management team, technical skills an integrated hatchery requires, and the governance structure for investors.

Management and Governance

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The enterprise is small enough to be run by a competent promoter with an experienced aquaculture manager, but the technical margin for error is narrow enough that management quality is the difference between the base case and stock loss.

Role

Number at maturity

Responsibility

Timing

Managing director

1

Strategy, funding, permits and offtake relationships

From inception

Aquaculture manager

1

System operation, water quality, fish health, stocking and harvest planning

Month 6 — the most important hire in the business

Hatchery technician

1

Broodstock management, spawning, sex reversal, nursery and genetic records

Month 8

Farm technicians

8

Feeding, grading, harvesting, cleaning and monitoring

Scaling from 4 to 8 with tank commissioning

Processing and logistics team

4

Gutting, icing, packing, live transport and delivery

Month 14

Sales and channel manager

1

Premium channel development and fingerling customer relationships

Month 12

Bookkeeper, part-time, and consulting fish veterinarian

2

Records, statutory returns, lender reporting and the health programme

From Month 3

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Labour cost, R

1 620 000

2 050 000

2 420 000

2 680 000

2 850 000

Harvest tonnes

25

70

110

138

150

Labour per kilogram harvested, R

64.80

29.29

22.00

19.42

19.00

Fingerlings sold, million

0.6

1.4

2.1

2.6

The aquaculture manager is recruited at Month 6, ahead of the hatchery commissioning, and is the most important hire in the business. Aquaculture skills are genuinely scarce in South Africa, and the plan budgets for an experienced appointment rather than assuming one can be trained in post. Governance runs through a board including at least one investor-nominated director, with monthly reporting on the three records above alongside the financial accounts.

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