Prepared for lenders, CDCs, and federal agencies to SBA SOP 50 10 8, USDA RD Instruction 5001, and conventional underwriting standards. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the agency, never the borrower. More than 4,000 studies since 1998 covering $40.2 billion in evaluated project value.
Aquaculture feasibility is biology underwritten as throughput: stocking density, growth curves, feed conversion ratios, and survival rates convert capital into harvestable biomass, and every revenue dollar traces back through that chain. The study tests the production plan against the species' documented performance at commercial scale, the water resource against the system's demand, and the market case against the channels — wholesale, processor, live, retail — the operation can actually reach. Site control, water rights, and discharge permitting are treated as the gating conditions they are across pond, tank, cage, raceway, and recirculating systems alike.
The methodology builds the pro forma from the production cycle outward: cohort-level biomass modeling, feed and energy as the dominant variable costs benchmarked against published aquaculture budgets, mortality and disease-event sensitivity, and harvest-price scenarios from NOAA and USDA market data. Permitting status — water intake, discharge, leases — is documented item by item, and the coverage analysis is run across the full grow-out cycle, not an annualized average that hides the cash trough between stocking and first harvest.
Every Wert-Berater financial model is fully linked with no hardcoded values, so any reviewer can stress any input. Deliverables comprise a complete narrative report and the linked Excel model, with ten-year pro forma, sensitivity analysis at ±5, 10, and 15 percent, interest-rate stress from +0.5 to +3.0 percent, and ratio analysis benchmarked against RMA and IBISWorld data.
SBA engagements are prepared to SOP 50 10 8, including its debt-service-coverage minimums of 1.15x operating and 1.00x global. USDA engagements follow RD Staff Instruction 5001 across the Business & Industry, Community Facilities, REAP, and Value-Added Producer Grant programs. Conventional engagements are built to the lender's stated coverage standard, typically 1.20x. Aquaculture engagements fit USDA B&I and conventional structures, with VAPG applicable where producers process or brand their harvest; the 7 CFR 5001 factor framework governs guaranteed credits and the technical dimension carries unusual weight given system-failure risk.
The category connects to the firm's standing seafood-processing, cold-storage, and food-system practices — the downstream infrastructure most aquaculture business plans depend on and most feasibility studies forget to test. Independence is non-negotiable: determinations follow the evidence and are not revised under pressure, and studies are built to pass lender, agency, and third-party review without exception items.
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