© Tropo Farms
“When I took the job at Tropo a lot of people looked at me like I was crazy. But I’ve no regrets whatsoever. It’s been a great experience – professionally and financially – for me,” reflects Murillo, who has been CEO of the Ghanian business for three very successful years.
A former engineer from Costa Rica, Murillo must be one of the most experienced tilapia executives on the planet having worked at Rainforest Tilapia in Costa Rica then Regal Springs, before being offered a job a Tropo by its owner, Mark Amechi.
“It was a bit of a difficult decision. Up to that point, I’d been in large international operations selling products in the US and European markets. So this was completely different: it was a company in Africa selling for the domestic market,” he explains.
Murillo took the plunge at the end of 2021 and arrived to find a business that had survived severe outbreaks of Streptococcus and ISKNV on Lake Volta, but which faced a fresh set of challenges.
As he explains, in 2022, Ghana experienced significant currency devaluation, severely affecting the costs of their inputs – notably feed.
“When I arrived, after analysing what we had and what we could do, we said, okay, we're going to grow 60 percent in 2022. And a lot of people were sceptical,” he recalls.
“Well, we were able to do it, but the conditions in the country were very, very difficult because the exchange rate went from 6 cedi to the dollar to 12 cedi to the dollar in a matter of less than 12 months. As a lot of the raw materials for feed are imported, even though they invoice us in local currency, they keep their pricing local currency dollarized,” he explains.
This effectively almost doubled their cost of production in local currency and, in turn, meant that they had to double their prices – not easy, according to Murillo, when most of his customers were far from well-versed in the vagaries of global currency exchange rates.
Stabilisation and growth
Thankfully the more stable macroeconomic conditions in the two years that followed removed some of this pressure and helped the business to flourish. Which is all the more impressive as it took place without the need for serious investment in infrastructure. This consists now, as it did then, of two hatcheries, one cage-based nursery area and six grow-out modules each of 12 cages, measuring 19.5 m in diameter with nets 6 m deep.
“The year before I arrived, the company did about 7,200 metric tonnes, whole weight, and we finished 2024 with 15,000 metric tonnes. All without investing in additional production assets – we didn’t put any more cages in the water,” Murillo observes.
© Tropo Farms
Two main factors help to explain this uptick.
“The reason we were able to do that is because, number one, we were not previously very efficient in the juvenile production area. So we put a lot of effort into increasing juvenile production. And then once we were able to do that, then we were also able to increase densities without risking biological issues,” he notes.
“The other thing was that we shortened the production cycle by having the market ready for the fish and being able to harvest the fish as soon as they are ready. That always allow us to be a lot more efficient in the use of the cages,” he adds.
Markets
All Tropo’s production is sold in the booming domestic market – Ghana has a population of 33-34 million with a high fish consumption rate of 24-25 kg per person per year – which easily absorbed the additional tonnages and is likely to continue to grow.
“My estimate is that the country might produce somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 metric tonnes of tilapia between aquaculture and a little bit of wild catch, but the total fish consumption in the country is almost 800,000 metric tonnes per year, so I think we have a lot of room to grow in the local market. And the good thing is that in Ghana they really like fresh, good quality whole tilapia. So we believe that we can double the size and still be able to fit all that into the domestic market,” Murillo reflects.
Tropo plans to double production to 30,000 tonnes by the end of 2030. In order to do so Murillo believes that they need to start adopting more technology to improve efficiencies and control – helped by a $10 million loan from AgDevCo, which they received in 2024.
As a result they will start trialling automatic feeders and harvest barges equipped with fish pumps and fish counters, and have already deployed a network of environmental sensors, measuring variables such as temperature, oxygen, pH and depth. Meanwhile they intend to invest in a new processing plant that will include equipment such as automatic graders.
© Tropo Farms
While rapid expansion of cage farming can raise environmental concerns, Murillo notes that there’s no danger of the lake’s carrying capacity being exceeded any time soon.
Indeed, the lake is a hefty 8,500 km2 and Murillo points out that Tropo’s cages cover less than one square kilometre while most of the other producers are very small scale other than one Chinese firm who produce about half the volume that Tropo is currently achieving.
Given the size of the lake and the size of the market this might seem strange to outsiders, but the reality of building an aquaculture business in Ghana is by no means as simple as Murillo makes it appear.
“Probably the main reason [that the lake is so undeveloped] is because aquaculture is capital-intensive. Secondly, the macroeconomic challenges that we had mean it’s not easy to find financing: it's a high risk proposition, even more if you're going to start from scratch. And if you want to borrow locally you're going to be paying 35 percent interest,” he observes.
© Tropo Farms
A call to investors
Despite these challenges Murillo makes a compelling case for international investors to step up and embrace the opportunities – both economically and in terms of impact – that investment into sub-Saharan African aquaculture can have.
And he does so, very effectively, by comparing Tropo’s low key success with the vast sums of money invested in struggling RAS projects in the Global North.
“One of the things that I talk to people is how do we make aquaculture in Africa sexy enough to attract investors? You have people investing almost $700 million in Atlantic Sapphire to produce salmon in one of the warmest climates that you can find in the US and you have about 1,500 metric tonnes of production per year to show for it. And you have this company that had a share price of $70 per share back in 2021 and 2022, and right now, less than $0.01 per share,” he points out.
“What could we have done with that money in Africa, in aquaculture production with very simple technology is mind-boggling,” he adds.
It’s a situation that Murillo is extremely passionate about.
“I saw in the news last week this Japanese RAS project [the Soul of Japan facility in Tsu City] just attracted $460 million and I'm thinking, 'is this Atlantic Sapphire version 2.0?' It's like, people don't learn. In any case, we have done a lot of good and [made] a lot of money with almost nothing here in Tropo Farms,” he concludes.
