Turner Falls, located in western Massachusetts 80 miles from the ocean, is not a place one thinks of when it comes to seafood, but it is the home of Australis Aquaculture - and the world's largest indoor barramundi farm.
 
Also known as Asian seabass, barramundi is prized in its native Australia for its sweet flavor and meaty texture.  But why is it being grown in Turner Falls? To answer that, you have to ask Australis founder and CEO Josh Goldman, who went to school at nearby Hampshire College in the early 1980s. Instead of protesting against nuclear plants, Goldman sought solutions by building a solar greenhouse, installing some fish tanks and pioneering the production of tilapia and hydroponic vegetables in closed systems.

After graduating, Goldman raised some money, built some fish tanks, leased some space in an old mill in Turner Falls and in 1986, formed a company, AquaFuture, and bought some hybrid striped bass fingerlings.  For almost 10 years, Goldman tried to make a go of farming striped bass, but it was a struggle. The fish didn't spawn year-round and they were tricky to raise.  So he started casting about for a better fish to farm, -- profiling more than 40 species before discovering barramundi, which he said was "the most delicious fish no one's ever heard of."

Barramundi, it turned out, were ideally suited to life on the farm. They're naturally hardy and spawn on a lunar cycle, making it easier to maintain a consistent supply. Even better, while they could be raised on a diet low in fish meal, they had a high omega-3 content and their moist white flesh made them a hit with chefs.

"I felt that we had something that fit a critical piece of the market, which is we needed a high-quality fish to replace the grouper, snapper and seabass, the higher-end fish that have been subject to overfishing," he recalls. In 2004, Goldman founded Australis Aquaculture and started introducing the U.S. market to the fish it had never heard of. The fact that the fish was raised sustainably in a recirculating system where the fish waste was captured and sold as fertilizer certainly helped Goldman sell his story.

Today Australis produces about 2 million pounds of fish at its farm in Turner Falls. The fish is sold fresh to a growing list of celebrity chefs at well-known restaurants, including Eric Ripert's Le Bernardin and Thomas Keller's French Laundry. In 2009, in recognition of his efforts to farm fish more sustainably, Australis Aquaculture received the Seafood Champion award from the Seafood Choices Alliance. The company was also featured prominently in Time magazine's recent cover story: the Future of Fish.

To view Australis' barramundi product click here, and remember to tell them you found them on FishChoice when you contact them.