The US is the world's largest seafood importer by value, with an increasing share of imports. Despite numerous policy initiatives, production and growth in the US aquaculture sector is limited. In this paper the recent success of imported branzino is used to show that the market is not a constraint. Branzino is known as sea bass in Europe and is a portion sized white fleshed fish primarily farmed in the Mediterranean, with no obvious equivalents produced in the US. Since the turn of the century imports have grown from zero to almost 10,000 mt, a quantity that would have made it the 4th largest farmed fish species if produced in the US. Until 2013, Greece was the main supplier, while in recent years Turkey has been the most important source, indicating how any producer creating a market opportunity will face keen competition when succeeding.
From 2015 when the quantities became more significant, the species entered the large whitefish market. However, branzino has a significant price premium relatively to tilapia, the largest species in this market, indicating that the opportunity to create separate niches in the seafood market is limited.