Waldoboro eel farm appears to be first facility of its kind in US

MAINE PUBLIC • April 18, 2023

What is believed to be the first land-based aquaculture farm for eels in the United States is now up and running in Waldoboro. After several years of operating out a small temporary farm in Down East Maine, American Unagi finished construction earlier this year on a 27,000-square-foot facility that grows and processes locally harvested eel. Company president and CEO Sara Rademaker says they'll produce at least 500,000 pounds of eel a year. "So we work exclusively with the Maine harvested glass eels, and we bring those into the farm and grow them out using land-based recirculating aquaculture systems," Rademaker says.