Having temporarily closed its hatchery due to the pandemic, a U.S.-owned sea cucumber producer recently restarted operations in the Maldives.
David Marrs, the CEO of BluBridge USA, which is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A., said the company is seeking to lease an additional 50 hectares of lagoon space in the Maldives.
“I’m working closely with the Ministry of Fisheries,” Marrs told SeafoodSource. “We are planning to operate about 200 hectares of grow-out space in the Maldives. This will be our primary sea-ranching area. Now that we are fully operational from the hatchery side, I’ll need to lease and prepare the grow-out space so it’s ready to receive fingerlings.”
BluBridge, which operates the Isles of Eden brand, is primarily selling to grocery chains and restaurant groups in Singapore, but the firm’s “ultimate destination” is China when its volumes can meet demand, Marrs said.
“This is where I anticipate the majority of sales volume to be, eventually,” he said. His goal is to scale up production to 20-plus metric tons per year over the next five years.
The pandemic has created major difficulties and costs for seafood exporters supplying Asia with freight routes from smaller producer nations to key markets like China particularly impacted. Key COVID-related challenges for Blubridge have been travel and entry disruption for international staff, according to Marrs.
“This is starting to ease up,” he said. “Freight has not been a major challenge for us related to export. We ship dried product from Maldives to Singapore and Singapore to Macau. But any additional importing of inputs or equipment for the operations has seen a significant increase.”
Marrs previously told SeafoodSource the firm’s target demographic is young professionals who are health and sustainability conscious. Hence, it has target sales in Singapore, traditionally a trading, tourism, and banking hub for Southeast Asia and often a trendsetter for mainland China.
The firm scored a coup when it got its product promoted on Night Owl Cinematics, a popular youth-oriented Singaporean online cooking show on channels like Youtube. Targeting Asia’s younger consumers with sea cucumbers, a species traditionally associated with older consumers, is based on his firm’s research, said Marrs.
“Our research showed that the younger generation wants to consumer more sea cucumbers, more often, but it must be convenient,’ he said.
Photo courtesy of BluBridge
