Bell Aquaculture to expand yellow perch market in Western Australia

Bell Aquaculture president and chief operating officer Michael Miller said the next step -- supplying perch fillets to three Delaware County restaurants -- is only the first of many in the long march to his ultimate goal of selling 8.5 million pounds of fish yearly by 2015.

Miller said with the market identified at 38 million pounds by Purdue -- and the market now less than two million pounds -- there's substantial room for growth.

He said the eateries are only the beginning in a market that has been under-served for years.

He hopes the company will be producing more than 30,000 pounds of perch filets each month by August in a business plan that sprang from his family's 150-year-old farm in rural Delaware County.

The fish farm's production facilities were built in the Albany area, in north-eastern Delaware County. In January, Bell built and moved into a 28,000-square-foot corporate headquarters and processing facility in Redkey, five miles away in Jay County.

He plans to supply fish directly to restaurants, skipping the traditional supply chain.