Catfish cultivation may be about to take off in Lithuania, according to one producer who’s keen to export filleted and smoked product.
Lithuania is producing a higher-quality catfish compared to cheaper imports from Southeast Asia, explained Gintautas Ramanauskas, deputy director of Zuveja. The firm is farming African catfish at recirculating aquaculture system facilities in Lithuania and processing the fish for sale in supermarkets and convenience-type eateries in Lithuania and neighboring countries.
Zuveja is now looking at markets throughout the European Union and Russia, Ramanauskas said. He stressed the firm’s product differs from imports like pangasius which the E.U. imports from Vietnam.
“This [pangasius] is not really catfish, it’s not the original African catfish species,” Ramanauskas said. “Our smoked fish and fish in jars have a long shelf-life so we could export to countries within Europe.”
A Baltic state formerly part of the Soviet Union, Lithuania produced 3,740 tons of seafood from aquaculture in 2017, of which 78 percent came from carp farms. Catfish contributed only 167 tons, but the country is well positioned to grow the sector substantially, Ramanauskas said.
Photo courtesy of Zuveja
