Brian O’Hanlon is the founder of Open Blue Sea Farms, one of the world’s first open ocean fish farms.
Brian O'Hanlon
Few people have come to grips with the fact that our world’s ocean fish supply will eventually collapse, but it's true. Brian O’Hanlon’s vision, realized by Open Blue Sea Farms, is a method to solve this crisis safely and sustainably, creating healthy and nutritious food for our ever more populated and hungrier world. Brian O’Hanlon is both a business pioneer and scientific ‘bioneer’.
His fascination with the sea is no surprise, coming from a family that has for three generations worked in the seafood industry, beginning with his grandfather John, who spent his professional life at New York’s famous Fulton Fish Market. O’Hanlon’s fascination with aquaculture came early as child, filling nearly every corner of his bedroom and family basement with aquariums of all shapes and sizes, where he raised and studied sea life in their many different environments. As a youngster, O’Hanlon became aware that our oceans would no longer be able to supply enough food for the world, as specie after specie were becoming depleted. His passion then focused on fish farming, termed aquaculture, as the best way to alleviate the condition of our emptying seas.
Knowing aquaculture was the fastest growing form of food production, Brian left college early and bravely launched a new type of aquaculture company that dramatically reduced the negative environmental impacts inherent to many fish farming operations. The company was Snapperfarm and O’Hanlon collaborated with the nations’ premier research and university laboratories to perfect an offshore method of seafood cultivation that is environmentally safe, respects sea life, the oceans and all its stakeholders. Over 50 tons of a fast growing, high quality marine white fish, cobia, was raised and successfully marketed during these trial periods. His work was featured in National Geographic, PBS TV specials, ABC News and dozens of other general, industry specific as well as scientific media.
O’Hanlon, with plans to significantly expand his proven seafood cultivation technology and market acceptance under the Open Blue Sea Farms banner, is actively pursuing investment for Open Blue’s deep open ocean aquaculture launch of branded, upscale and gourmet seafood products. O’Hanlon calls it “The Open Blue Revolution”, cultivating seafood far from shore into the open ocean where strong currents and deep water support the biomass without impacting sensitive ecosystems. This translates to environmental and social impacts reduced or eliminated, stakeholder impacts are avoided, energy consumption is reduced, and coastal conditions are improved along with a sustainable supply of nutritious, healthy, safe, and delicious seafood.
About the project
As the 3rd generation of his family working in the seafood industry, Brian O’Hanlon began witnessing the early warning signs over the growing global seafood supply crisis at a very young age. At 17 years old, he decided to do something about it and set out to pioneer the development of one of the world's first open ocean fish farms. Today, O’Hanlon is beginning to realize that vision as his farm scales up from the proof of concept phase to an economically viable business.
Open Blue Sea Farms
Our mission is to reliably feed the growing premium fish market with all natural, healthy, delicious branded seafood, through environmentally safe and sustainable open ocean farming methods.
Entrepreneurs create products, services and jobs. They expand economies, improve people's lives, provide employment (high and rising wages) and bring about competition. A competitive environment, in turn, gives rise to efficiency, meritocracy and further innovations and entrepreneurial drive.
The potent combination of entrepreneurship and technological innovation can forge an environment that is conducive to further enterprise, involving even government policy in supporting entrepreneurship and innovation.
