David has 35 years’ experience in practical Tilapia Farming.  His aquaculture career started at Barony Agricultural College in Dumfries, Scotland. 

On qualifying David worked at Willards Foods/Cairns Foods in the laboratory as a technician involved in reformulations and checking of formulations for the many food items produced by the company. David was appointed as the hatchery manager for the newly started Tilapia pond farming operations of the group, The Bream Farm.  The hatchery was based at the factory site in Harare Zimbabwe.  He was later appointed as the Depot Manager in Kariba, where the initial site was developed with a concrete RAS farming system, later the pilot cages on Lake Kariba and the conversion of the old freshwater prawn farm to the breeding farm for Tilapia.

David then spent 11 years as an Operations Manager with a steel reinforcing and steel merchant company.  David ran his own businesses in South Africa in Air Conditioning and refrigeration for 5 years.  He worked in water storage for 4 years installing water tanks, reservoirs and lined dams.

Returning to Aquaculture in 2010 David and his partner developed the Aquaculture Production Unit -   The APU.  The system allows a farmer to start farming from day 1 and to develop the skills and knowledge required to successfully grow Tilapia from fingerling to edible plate size fish.  The APU is scalable and modular allowing exponential growth and commercialization.  There are 450 APU units in 9 African countries with the potential of raising 450 Tonnes of Tilapia a year.  The continued sales and production from the APU’s will see Tilapia production steadily increasing on the African continent.  The first APU units have been shipped to the USA and these will open up opportunities to farmers in urban areas for the production of locally farmed Tilapia.