Commercial Fishing Operations
Commercial fishing vessels and companies harvesting seafood.
Market snapshot
These figures describe Aquaculture & Fisheries (7.1.8), the segment that Commercial Fishing Operations sits within — not Commercial Fishing Operations on its own.
Aquaculture and commercial fishing (NAICS 1125/1141) are covered by USDA/NOAA rather than the Economic Census (which reports establishments but not receipts for fishing), so the segment is not separately sized here.
Business model & economics
Revenue model
Farmed and wild-caught seafood sales
Key economics
- Recurring revenue
- Low–Moderate
- EBITDA margin
- Cyclical; feed-, stock-, and price-dependent
- Capex intensity
- High
harvest- and production-cycle-based
Characteristics
- Aquaculture the primary growth avenue.
- Wild fisheries largely at capacity.
- Land-based/RAS and sustainable fisheries investment.
Geographic concentration
Aquaculture and commercial fisheries concentrate overwhelmingly on the coasts with the richest fishing grounds — Alaska (salmon, pollock, crab) and Maine (lobster) most of all, with the Pacific Northwest close behind.
U.S. Census Bureau — 2022 County Business Patterns (establishments by state), NAICS 1125/1141. Concentration shown by location quotient.
M&A deal context
Who’s acquiring
- Seafood & aquaculture producers
- RAS & sustainable-aquaculture investors
- Vertically-integrating processors
What’s driving deals
- Farmed-seafood and RAS investment.
- Seafood-demand and sustainability trends.
- Consolidation of fishing and aquaculture operations.
Find Commercial Fishing Operations acquisition targets
Search Acquisera’s index for companies classified under Commercial Fishing Operations (7.1.8.1) and build a targeted deal pipeline.
Search companies