Licenses and Permits required

[grammagrumpy]

Hi everyone,
I am just getting started with aquaponics and am in the research phase at this point. I am trying to make sure that I have all of the t's crossed and i's dotted with government regs, licenses, and permits. I live in the state of Missouri. Along with the plants (herbs mostly), I plan on growing out tilapia and selling them to the public. I have been told to either sell them 'live' or 'whole on ice'. This will tell you how clueless I am - I can understand the 'live' part, but what exactly does 'whole on ice' mean. Does that mean to field clean them and leave the heads on or what? What other permits and licenses will I need? My goal is to start very small and figure out what works and what doesn't and then expand so that this will supply a decent retirement income for me. I still have a couple of years left to retirement (bummers) so I am hoping to get all the kinks worked out before then.

Any and all help will be appreciated. Oh - I have ordered the plans for the Sperane system. Also, I am totally new to raising fish.

[Pugo]

Welcome to Aquaponics HQ. I sure you will learn all you need to know to pull that rabbit out of the hat. Whole on ice just means the complete fish dead packed in ice.. no cleaning just a fish. So all you have to do is take the live fish pack it on ice and there you go. Commercial growing business will take time to develop, As I remember it, the space requirement for a small family setup was 3,700 sq.ft. Greenhouse. 37 ft wide by 100 ft long. But don't take this as a must have thing, it was just an article that I read about small family business setups in Aquaponics.. Honestly I only know what I read about it.. There are others here that would have much better idea about it. Once again welcome to the forum.

[kellenw]

Hello GrammaGrumpy! Glad you found your way to the forum. Sarah told me to watch out for ya. :)

Yup, whole on ice is just a whole fish (nothing done to it) that is placed.... on ice! :)

There was a guy that used to sell live and whole on ice tilapia at the River Market (Kansas City's downtown farmers market). He did really well, but got out of the business a couple years ago. I'm a member of the River Market association, and they've asked me several times to start selling there or if I could find someone who would, because the tilapia were extremely popular and missed.