Da Yang Shi Jia (Ocean Family) has announced the construction of a CNY 1 billion (USD 140 million, EUR 130 million) processing plant aimed at providing more tuna to the Chinese market.
Ocean Family is a fishing and seafood distribution conglomerate based in Zhejiang, China. Last week, the company hosted a ground-breaking ceremony for the facility in the Distant Water Fisheries Park (also known as Zhoushan National Oceanic Fishery Base Business Center) in Zhoushan.
Billed as an “industrial agglomeration project,” the 150,000-square-meter plant will have capacity to process 200,000 metric tons of tuna annually, and is set to include a product development center and will incorporate new technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data use, according to an agreement signed between Ocean Family and the Zhoushan government, seen by SeafoodSource. The project, first announced in 2017, is set for completion by 2022.
Ocean Family has steadily been expanding into the tuna sector. In 2017, it launched three new tuna purse-seine vessels, including China’s “newest and most modern tuna seine net vessel,” according to company head Zeng Yue Xiang, who described the company’s efforts to expand into tuna trading as a “contribution to making China a strong nation in long-distance fishing.”
In December 2019, Xiang said the company had plans to invest in fisheries and infrastructure in Kirabati, an island nation with a rich tuna fishery, during a visit by a delegation from the Pacific Island of Kiribati to Ocean Family’s company headquarters.
