Singapore Crawfish is planning to build a 5,000-square-meter grow-out facility in the heart of Bangkok, Thailand.
Chow previously told SeafoodSource he planned to put up to SGD 4 million (USD 2.9 million, EUR 2.8 million) into the construction of a new growout facility in Southeast Asia. The company has previously won support for its research and development from the Singaporean government, and the company recently added one of the directors in the Thai-Singapore Chamber of Commerce as a partner.
“It will be our first showroom and showcase [in Bangkok],” Singapore Crawfish CEO Desmond Chow told SeafoodSource. “Within the next year we aim to grow and expand tenfold to other provinces.”
Singapore Crawfish has previously distributed crawfish fries from company hatcheries located in Malaysia and Singapore to contracted farmers, who then sell him finished crawfish back after a typical growing time of four months. Chow also supplies fry to growers in Indonesia, where he has previously conducted research on the economic potential of crayfish farming in rice paddies.
Growing demand in China is powering consumption of crayfish, with the pre-Covid crayfish trade in China alone worth USD 48 billion (EUR 39.7 billion), and the global crayfish market size predicted to be worth USD 10.3 billion (EUR 10 billion) by 2026, based on a predicted 16 percent annual growth rate, according to Chow. The company is also hoping to build a secondary market for its chitin products.
The company’s Bangkok growout facility will feature the container recirculating aquaculture system (CRAS) produced by Chow’s other company, Hatch Hives.
“It’s an extremely effective system, as people all around the world no longer have to spend time buying and installing expensive and complicated RAS systems,” Chow said. “All they need to do is to purchase the CRAS from us and we will send it to their location, and they can use it immediately, it's totally plug and play. Even farmers from rural areas or farms, or budding entrepreneurs, no longer need to spend millions of dollars and risk any wrong installation. Our CRAS is extremely affordable and can be customized to fit any farms.”
Photo courtesy of Singapore Crawfish
