Your harvest
Roe yield is expressed as gonadosomatic index (GSI) — roe weight as a share of whole urchin weight. Urchins pulled from barrens carry almost none until they're fed.
Three ways the same harvest ends
Same divers, same days, same urchins off the same reef. The only difference is what happens after they reach shore.
Removal only
Wild-direct sale
Ranched & enhanced
Your assumptions
Margins are calculated on selling price, the standard CPG convention — not as markup on cost.
FOB through to the plate
Two paths shown side by side: through a distributor to retail shelf, and direct from supplier to a restaurant menu.
Market price reference
Sourced figures for where value sits along the chain. Ex-vessel is per pound of whole urchin; wholesale and retail are per pound of roe. These are not the same unit and should not be compared directly without applying a yield rate.
Where these numbers come from
Verified figures, sourced ranges, and your own inputs
Verified. The $500/day removal rate is the rate California paid commercial divers under state-funded purple urchin removal at Mendocino sites (2020–22), where the urchins were landed for compost. The GSI figures are species-matched: purple urchins taken from barrens showed a gonad index of roughly 3.5%, rising to about 14.9% after ten weeks on nutrient-enriched giant kelp. Marketable-quality uni is generally characterized by a GSI above 12%.
Sourced ranges. Ex-vessel figures come from CDFW landings receipts and PacFIN data reported in trade press; per-pound values are calculated from published pounds and dollar values rather than quoted directly. Wholesale and retail bands come from commercial market-data aggregators and direct vendor listings — indicative, not authoritative. No California-specific purple urchin roe wholesale price was found; the wholesale band covers sea urchin generally.
Your inputs. Ranching cost, survival rate, processing, freight, and channel margins remain editable placeholders with no sourcing behind them. Replace them with your own numbers before drawing conclusions.
A caveat on yield. Gonad index as a measurement has been challenged in the literature for resting on assumptions about how gonad size scales with body size. Treat the GSI figures as study-condition results rather than guaranteed commercial yields; grow-out results vary by feed, temperature, season, and stock condition.
A caveat on the wild-direct price. The default $14/lb sits mid-band for wholesale uni, which may be generous for roe taken directly from barrens at a 3.5% gonad index — barren urchins are described in the literature as having no marketable gonads at all. If anything, this default flatters the wild-direct scenario.