Romania’s Pastravul din Tara Ta plans to on-grow fish in the Black Sea

by Manipal Systems
Luca Todosia

Plans to on-grow fish in the Black Sea

This article was featured in Eurofish Magazine 3 2025.

The trout farming cooperative, Pastravul din Tara Ta, comprises four companies which together have an annual output of around 1,000 tonnes account or approximately 25% of Romania’s total trout production. The cooperative plans to take fish from its farms and place them in cages in the Black Sea for on-growing.

Pastravul din Tara Ta, a rainbow trout farming ­cooperative, operates six aquaculture facilities located primarily around the Carpathian Mountains, where they have access to abundant natural water sources. Or at least they used to be abundant. In recent years, climate change has threatened the flow of water in at least one of the sites. Luca Todosia, whose family owns three of the cooperative’s sites, says that at their site in Prahova county the water flow to the farm went from 200 L per second to somewhere between 50 and 90 L per second. To continue farming the density of fish in the ponds was lowered and the water was aerated heavily. It is not economical, Mr Todosia says, but there is really no alternative. Trials were also made to circulate the water in a bid to use less, but this affected the quality of the fish and were therefore stopped.

Black Sea cages to be populated end 2025

The cooperative recently acquired space in the Black Sea where it plans to on-grow rainbow trout in cages. The fish will be harvested from the inland farms and driven to the Black Sea site where they will be introduced into the cages. This has long been the vision of the trout farming sector, but it is only recently that the necessary legislative framework has been put in place. The cooperative collaborates closely with the National Institute for Marine Research and Development “Grigore Antipa” in Constanta, where Dr Vitor Nita, the head of the Marine Living Resources Department is conducting trials growing trout in tanks of salt water. In the Black Sea the trout will be kept in the water from around September to May when the water temperature is acceptable to the fish. The combination of the salt water and the rougher conditions in the sea gives the fish a vast appetite. They eat a lot and grow rapidly reaching 2 to 4 kg depending on their size when introduced into the cages. In contrast, in freshwater they can take a year to reach 800 g. The plan is to introduce fish of 300, 600, and 900 g into the cages and to monitor their growth and wellbeing. Türkiye has had spectacular success raising trout in cages in the Black Sea for some 15 years now, but it was initiatives by Croatia and Albania in the Adriatic that inspired Romanian trout farmers to try growing trout in marine cages. Luca Todosia says that they have leased space in the Black Sea for cages which they hope to populate with young trout in 2025 itself. The fish will come from the family farms where fish are raised from imported eggs. The eggs are certified disease free and are fully traceable both up and down the supply chain, says Mr Todosia, thanks to an electronic system of farm management that all the members of the cooperative use. This also ensures complete biosecurity at the site. The eggs are triploids so the fish are sterile and even if they escape into the environment they will not reproduce. Producing our own eggs is theoretically possible, says Mr Todosia, but it would be too expensive in terms of time and investment to be worth it, so we buy the eggs from suppliers in Denmark, Poland, Italy, and the United States and produce about 2.5 million fingerlings a year.

Fish quality guaranteed by Carrefour label

The six farm sites in the cooperative including one in a lake and the one on the Black Sea are owned by four farmers and current production amounts to 1,000 t out of a total Romanian trout production of 4,000 tonnes. Mr Todosia plans to study aquaculture and sustainability in Denmark when he finishes his undergraduate programme at the University of Brasov. He sees the trout sector growing in the coming years driven in part by the activities of the cooperative which plans to expand with another lake-farming site. At the Pastravaria Dejani site in Brasov, also owned by the Todosias, all the fish produced conform to the requirements of Filiera Calitatii Carrefour, the retailer’s brand representing products of the highest quality. This guarantees traceability from the egg to the consumer and that no animal protein, nor any genetically modified soy is used in the feed. In the tanks, the fish are maintained at a lower density than in conventional farms, and regular water quality checks are mandatory. The feed conversion ratio is 1.09 meaning 1.09 kg of feed results in 1 kg of fish meat which, according to Mr Todosia, is not bad for the second year of production. The water is drawn from a river with a flow of 600 litres per second. This flows into the basins holding the fish which are built at different levels so that the force of gravity is enough to propel the water into the basins and then out again and back into the river. Fish are typically introduced into the basins at 3-5 g and grown to up to a kilo in weight and while whole fish on ice is the main product, Mr Todosia is trying to popularise the consumption of fillets due to the ease of handling and because it is more lucrative to sell fillets than whole fish. Another product is hot-smoked fillets with condiments which has also proved a success. The cooperative has recently signed contracts with other supermarkets in anticipation of the greater volumes of fish that will emerge from the new lake farm and from on-growing fish in the Black Sea. The cooperative sells all the fish that is produced by its members and also buys the feed. Buying the feed in bulk means that the price is more favourable than those the individual members would get, and farmers who are not members of the cooperative or are only affiliated also buy feed through it. Because the feed quality is critical to the quality of the final product the main suppliers are two reputed Scandinavian feed producers one of whom the cooperative has been working for many years.


The farm, Pastravaria Dejani, is located close to Brasov and has an output of 200 tonnes of 1 kg rainbow trout individuals a year certified to the Filiera Calitatii Carrefour standard.

Cloud-based software handles all farm management 

The production site at lake Oasa in Alba was established in 2023 with the help of Italian consultants and the first full year of production in 2024. The lake is at an altitude of 1,400 m and is fed by water from the mountains so there is little or no risk of disease. With enough feed the fish can grow to 1.5 kg. While the lake is not currently threatened by rising temperatures or a lack of water, Mr Todosia notes that rivers in the vicinity of Dejani, the Brasov site, have held less and less water over the years. This farm too was built with Italian expertise contributing to the design and is equipped with multiple filtering systems to ensure the welfare of the fish and that the water returned to the source is free of any pollution. Production currently amounts to 200 tonnes a year and is managed essentially by two people. The cloud-based farm management software monitors all the farm parameters issuing warnings when manual interventions are needed and thus allows for highly efficient production. The river that feeds the farm also serves a small hydropower station upstream from the farm and water for the fish production comes directly from the hydropower plant rather than from the river. Because of this the farm can manage without a drum filter as the water is cleaned of debris, twigs, leaves, etc. at the hydropower plant. Moreover, for the same reason, wild trout in the river cannot enter the farm and compromise biosecurity.

The peak season in Romania for fish consumption is in the winter but at the cooperative fish are harvested at regular intervals throughout the year and delivered to a warehouse for distribution throughout the country to those Carrefour stores that have a fresh fish counter. Within 24 hours of harvesting the fish is with Carrefour so it has the longest possible shelf life. The cooperative is the biggest supplier of fish to Carrefour in Romania and with the envisaged expansion of production its role is only likely to get more important. Its approach, combining high quality eggs, manual feeding precision, environmentally sustainable practices, strict quality assurance protocols, and planned expansions, will enable it to maintain its leading position in Romanian trout aquaculture.

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