A Better Project Toolkit for Aquaculture Consultants

We Work With Consultants — Not Around Them

Bring the project. Keep the relationship. Use our infrastructure.

• Your client stays your client — FishMatch does not take over the advisory relationship.
• Your expertise stays at the centre; the platform organises the procurement around it.
• Consultants can use the tools inside their own workflow and under their own recommendations.
• Consultants can stay involved through RFQ preparation, shortlisting, review and clarifications.
• FishMatch provides procurement infrastructure, not a replacement for technical expertise.

Our model is designed to respect and strengthen the consultant's role in the client relationship. The objective is straightforward: make good consultants more effective, not compete with them.

Aquaculture RFQ Template: The Sections Every Fish or Shrimp Farm RFQ Needs

A reusable aquaculture RFQ template saves a consultant from rebuilding the brief on every project. Whatever the system — RAS, ponds, cages or hatchery — the template should carry the same blocks, in the order manufacturers price them:

1. Project summary — species, product form, annual tonnage and phasing.
2. Design basis — system type, volumes, stocking density, harvest weight, peak standing biomass.
3. Water — source, laboratory analysis, temperature range, flow, exchange or recirculation rate.
4. Life support — oxygen demand at peak biomass, aeration or oxygenation duty, filtration expectations.
5. Power — available grid capacity, critical load list and the backup strategy for aeration.
6. Monitoring and control — parameters, alarms, data logging and remote access expectations.
7. Scope boundaries — what the supplier includes, what is excluded, and the interfaces between lots.
8. Guaranteed parameters — the performance figures the offer must state in writing.
9. Delivery — Incoterms, delivery window, installation, commissioning, training and documentation.
10. Commercial terms — spares, warranty, payment milestones and the common price breakdown format.

A ready-to-rebrand aquaculture RFQ template (PDF + DOCX) is available in the consultant resources library, and the RFQ checklist turns these blocks into a line-by-line review.

RAS Procurement Steps: From Design Basis to Comparable Proposals

RAS procurement fails when equipment is requested before the recirculation design is written down. The sequence that keeps filtration, pumping, oxygenation and monitoring offers comparable:

1. Fix the production target and derive the daily feed load at peak standing biomass.
2. Write the design basis — TAN load, recirculation rate, oxygen delivery, thermal duty and redundancy expectations.
3. Split the scope into lots: tanks and hydraulics, mechanical filtration, biofiltration, oxygenation, monitoring and control.
4. State guaranteed water-quality parameters and exclusions per lot, with a common price breakdown.
5. Route the identical scope to matched independent manufacturers.
6. Normalise the returned proposals against the design basis before comparing price.
7. Document the recommendation against criteria the client agreed in advance.

Worked structure: the RAS grow-out reference profile shows these steps applied, and comparing RAS quotations covers the normalisation step in detail.

How Better Project Inputs Create Better Manufacturer Proposals

A manufacturer prices risk as much as hardware. When the water analysis, the oxygen demand and the available power are stated, the supplier can engineer to them; when they are absent, the supplier either pads the price or narrows the scope — and both distort the comparison.

Defined inputs also change the conversation with the client. Instead of debating brands, the consultant can show why a proposal is more expensive: a different redundancy level, a different energy assumption, or work that a cheaper offer simply excluded.

How Consultants Can Compare Aquaculture Equipment Proposals More Effectively

Comparison starts by rebuilding each offer against the same scope list: equipment, installation, pipework and interfaces, control panels, commissioning, spares, training, documentation, delivery terms. Then mark what each supplier excluded, restate their performance and energy assumptions in common units, and only afterwards look at price.

The result is a defensible recommendation, documented against criteria the client agreed in advance — supplier-neutral, and independent of who quoted lowest. Supplier research adds the documentary screening layer: company documentation, reference profile and export history.

How to Start a Client Project With FishMatch

1. Open a structured project brief with the client inputs you already have.
2. Fill the technical gaps using the calculators and the RFQ readiness check.
3. Split the scope into lots and state exclusions, guarantees and commercial terms.
4. Route one identical scope to matched independent manufacturers.
5. Compare the returned proposals line by line and present the recommendation to your client.

More on how we work with advisors: the consultant partner programme.