To retain sustainability as the world’s need for seafood grows, aquaculture’s business models will likely have to change from “one species/one process/one product” to a streamed bioeconomic web involving different industry sectors. Evolving aquaculture practices will require a conceptual shift toward understanding the working of food production systems rather than focusing on monospecific technological solutions. As aquaculture expands to open-ocean operations, deployment footprints should make sense from environmental, economic and production perspectives, and also have an acceptable societal impact.