Golden flounder

Haeyeon is making a research and development effort to mass produce golden flounders.

Golden flounder

Golden flounder is a unique breed that occur with a possibility of several million to one.

When the breed is found in fish farms, it has the same color until one year from its birth, but as it grows to be 2–3 kilograms, its color turns to an elaborate gold.

Haeyeon Fish Farm attempted to mass produce this rare golden flounder since 2007 to boost export business. Due to the rarity of its sightings, however, only ten individual golden flounders were acquired in during several years, which slowed down the research timeline.

Beginning in 2013, golden flounder was included in the Golden Seed Project (GSP) sponsored by the Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, and Haeyeon Fish Farm was selected as a research institution by the ministry. Working with Blugen Korea to study the genetic resources, Haeyeon was able to achieve today's golden flounder exports.

The focus point of the golden flounder research was to increase the rate of the breed from one in several millionths to a much greater frequency that gives rise to business feasibility. In addition, the researchers studied ways to have the golden color set in when the flounders are between 500g and 1,000g in weight, in order to secure their competitiveness as an export commodity.

As known, two to three years are required to produce a generation of flounders, in addition to much more time, effort, and financial investment. The golden flounder project has attained a significant level of rate at which this rare breed occurs, and while the timing of the coloring is not ideal, it has been made to set in much earlier to be competitive as an export commodity.