Atlantic Sapphire CEO Johan Andreassen says there is no reason for investors to doubt the land-based salmon producer following a significant fish loss at its Danish land-based salmon farm Saturday.

"Why shouldn't (investors) maintain confidence?" he asked IntraFish.

"We have always stated that there is a systemic risk in RAS (recirculating aquaculture systems).

That's why we are building multiple independent RAS systems opposed to one large one. It's like having multiple independent netpen sites."

Atlantic Sapphire, within four months, will operate more than 15 of these independent RAS systems, from hatchery to harvest, across its Danish and US operations. On Saturday, the company lost 227,000 fish due to excessive nitrogen levels in one of the tanks.

But the incident has done little to quell Andreassen's bullishness, telling IntraFish that for every incident the company has experienced in its 10-year history, it had learned new things, with the salmon completely dependent on the farming team being able to control "every single parameter of their environment through their lifespan."

"When we fail, we learn. The world doesn't go on if we don't dare to fail," he said, adding that raising fish close to markets with no impact on coastal areas and avoidance of airfreight's financial and environmental costs is "the future."

Andreassen -- who yesterday bought up $148,000 (€133,000) worth of stock in the company in a show of confidence as the share price crashed -- added that aside from reducing the frequency of incidents, a top priority for the company is reducing the magnitude of each incident.

"Under normal operations our mortality rates are way underneath the conventional industry and without sealice and disease issues," he said.

The comments followed a Tweet from the Miami-based salmon farming entrepreneur saying the company had "failed" its fish and was "heartbroken" about the incident.

Aquaculture

Atlantic Sapphire CEO: 'The world doesn't go on if we don't dare to fail'