Demand for vannemei seedlings was strong in the first half of 2020, according to Bohai Aquatic Products Co. Ltd. The company hit CNY 77.3 million (USD 11.5 million, EUR 10 million) in sales in H1, an increase of 51 percent on the same period last year. The company, which also uses the English name Bohai Seafoods, produces and sells shrimp, shrimp feed, and seed.
Profits, however, remain elusive with the firm, which lost CNY 6.45 million (USD 960,000, EUR 860,000) in H1, though the loss was CNY 2.5 million (USD 370,000, EUR 320,000) less than its loss in the same period in 2019. The company’s shrimp seedlings income rose, according to the firm’s report to investors, but its costs also rose 51.47 percent, to CNY 66.5 million (USD 10 million, EUR 8.6 million). Spending on marketing, at CNY 4.8 million, (USD 720,000, EUR 620,000) was up 35 percent year-on-year.
Based in the key aquaculture and processing region of Shandong on China’s east coast, Bohai Seafoods is owned by the Hui Tai Investment Co. conglomerate and operates as a subsidiary of the Hui Tai Group, one of China’s biggest producers of salt and a big seafood player in its own right. Hui Tai, which has major interests in the chemicals and real estate sectors, received international attention in 2018 when it bought Swedish seafood processor and distributor Borderna Hanssons.
Hui Tai has made more news recently with its announcement of an expansion into ocean wind farms and aquaculture. It’s also planning a feed mill with a plan to produce “Green, No-Harm Feed,” according to a Mandarin language report to the Chinese securities regulator for Bohai Seafood.
Bohai made headlines last year when it promised to launch the Bohai Seafood Commodity Trading Platform, an online trading platform it said will bring more price transparency to China’s seafood market.
“We are giving producers, distributors and consumers a fair and open platform to exchange information,” Bohai Seafoods General Manager Zhang Rong An said at the launch event.
The exchange, which would eliminate middlemen and give better prices to producers, doesn’t appear to be operational currently. However, the company’s ambitions in seedlings and feed look set to sync with Chinese government policy to reduce pressure on the country’s wild stocks.
Last year, Chinese officials set an ambitious target to reduce fishing levels in domestic waters by three million tons to a lower ceiling of 10 million tons, from domestic waters over the coming three years. That’s a significant slice of the country’s overall seafood output from freshwater and seawater sources and suggests efficiencies or imports – or both – will have to rise significantly in order to meet current demand.
Photo courtesy of Bohai Seafoods
