Abstract:
The Sunburst Trout Company began in 1948 as a small pond-stocking rainbow trout farm. The Haywood County enterprise grew into a far-flung retail and wholesale business, supplying individual customers in almost every state and over two hundred buyers for restaurants, supermarkets, and seafood brokers. Rainbow trout take about four years to reach their harvest weight of three pounds. The company processes about 10,000 pounds of fish each week through every season of the year. Sunburst employs between twelve and eighteen people, and turnover is low.