We swore we’d never be fish farmers

Arlen and I swore we’d NEVER be fish farmers when we both left home at 18.

Back then, our family had just one farm. It was the early days when we couldn’t afford fancy equipment, so everything was done manually with a lot of back-breaking work.

Instead of pumping fish, we hand netted them. Instead of using automatic counters, we weighed them in buckets. And many high school mornings began at 4am to load fish onto trucks.

So Arlen took off to post-conflict areas like Angola, Iraq and Mozambique to work in logistics and international development.

And I headed to the city to work in science advocacy for an engineering school and theoretical physics institute.

Yet after a decade we found our way home. It took all that exploring for us to learn that fish farming is one of the:

• most progressive
• most environmentally conscious
• most fun careers out there.

Plus we had new dreams of growing the business together. And we recruited a few others, including Arlen’s husband Mike and their son Ivo for the journey.

We all work as hard as we ever did as teenagers, but thanks to an AMAZING team and new equipment, we get even more done!

• We’ve gone from…
• Spawning 2 million eggs a year to 10 million
• Shipping 300,000 trout fingerlings to 4 million
• 1 farm to 6 farms
• 3 staff to 25
• Adding coho salmon and Arctic char
• Sending live fish as far as Saskatchewan and Quebec
• More market size rainbow trout than ever
• New processing plant
• New delivery model to 1,800+ homes a month
• And the best part, getting to meet all of YOU who enjoy our fish with your families (and hearing from you is one of the most favourite part of our jobs!)

Now, Arlen, Mike and I cannot imagine doing anything else. Except expanding to grow more and more tasty and eco-friendly fish here in Ontario!

Thank you for supporting the entire Springhills family to keep doing what we love!