Not long after Typhoon Meranti had passed, we arrived at a grouper fish farm in Wenfeng Village in Pingtung’s Jiadong Township to see the sunlight glistening off the endless stretch of fish pond surfaces. Just before our eyes, workers hauled up nets of hundreds of spluttering fish, preparing to transport them to a sea port that is 30-minutes away, afterward shipping the batch to Hong Kong.
From beside fish farms and weighing scales to inside bustling fish markets, you can hear local fishermen lamenting “this year, the price of the rock grouper is at its worst in history!” A consensus between the local fishermen is that they cannot depend on mainland China. “Last week, Hong Kong ports shut us off and Taiwan groupers couldn’t go in; It’s every man for himself now,” said another frustrated fisherman.
Taiwan’s brown-marbled groupers can’t compete with those from mainland China. However, in a village next to Pingtung County’s Jiadong Township, a new generation of fishermen are not willing to have the weather decide their fate. Developing a business in frozen processed seafood, they opened up a new path that led to Hong Kong ports while others in the fish market had all hit dead ends.
Avoiding fish market crowds, catering to Hong Kong discerning tastes, boosting quality and popularity among five-star hotels and restaurants
Jiadong Township aquaculture and fisheries group Let’s Love Fish is made up of young people from a variety of backgrounds, from engineers and teachers to graduate students, who have quit their day jobs to take over family fishery businesses in their hometown. One of these people is Chen Zhong-hong, a former smartphone panel engineer, who has come to inspect the ponds.
This small group of 12 regularly exports to Hong Kong every week and is Taiwan’s most successful group devoted to the production and marketing of exported seafood, reaching an annual production value of NT$200 million after operating for only a year.
The impressive thing is that very early on, this group of young fishermen sensed a political change in the air. Outside of the mainland Chinese market, which makes up almost 80 percent of Taiwan’s grouper exports, the group challenges one of the most picky fish markets in Asia—Hong Kong—putting Pingtung groupers on the competitive world stage.
“The price of live [Taiwan grouper] fish is double that of fish from the mainland,” said Chen Qi-hong of the Let’s Love Fish marketing and production group. He continued to say that the group triumphs over other competitors with its top-quality products, with five-star hotels and restaurants in Hong Kong directly asking his group to supply groupers. Not only has this helped the group survive the recent grouper price fall, but it has also aided in establishing the Taiwan grouper brand.
Standing on a rooftop, overlooking the patches of endless fish farms, another thing that catches my eye is the uniform concrete borders of holding ponds that surround the fish farms. The grouper fish swim in the 3-meter-deep ponds. The way they utilize their 37 holding ponds is how the production and marketing group satisfies Hong Kong connoisseurs.
It takes two days to ship Taiwan groupers to Hong Kong. The fishermen’s fresh catch is generally moved to its point of departure by live-fish transportation companies, which then immediately load it onto a ship for export to its consumer destination. After leaving their culture pond, the fish jump and wriggle due to being in unfamiliar settings. This image of thrashing fish has become the common perception of seafood for people.
However, when live fish are boarded on ships in containers, their transportation aquariums are so crowded that they become scratched and bruised from bumping against the walls or even attacking each other in the high-stress environment. The anxiety also agitates the fish, making them overactive and draining their energy. This results in a 5-percent decrease in weight when the fresh shipment arrives at its destination. After such damage, the catch becomes harder to sell.
“The higher the rate of weight loss, the more loss fishermen have to absorb,” said Chen Qi-hong. If the fish skin is damaged, the bad appearance of the product will affect negotiating a good price, he added. “Hong Kong customers use sea-caught fish standards for farmed fish; That’s how strict it is there,” he said.
Chen Qi-hong, who is also a photographer, was selected as one of 100 promising young farmers by the Council of Agriculture under the Executive Yuan in 2016. In the spirit of research and through collaboration with his colleagues, Chen Qi-hong tried to find a solution to the fish weight-loss problem. In the end, they decided switch to mariculture, which is open-ocean farming, and pure seawater holding ponds. Although this would require an additional 20 percent in investment over regular on-shore fish farms, it would lead to the production of higher-quality groupers.
“After being in the seawater holding ponds for one to three weeks, the farm-raised fish will become stronger,” Chen Qi-hong said, adding that the fish won’t be shipped right away after being harvested from the farms. First, the fish will be put in transitional ponds or holding ponds to be carefully observed over a period of time for good color and liveliness before the best are selected to be loaded onto a boat bound for Hong Kong seaports.
Addressing the benefits of moving the fish into the holding pond after harvest for a period of time before shipping the batch to Hong Kong, he described the process to be a “transitional hotel” for the fish. Exposing the farm-grown groupers to a crowded environment earlier gives them a longer transitional period to adapt to future shipping conditions. After being transferred to transportation aquariums for shipping, the fish will instinctively adjust their metabolism, slowing down and not expending too much energy. This will solve the weight loss problem, he explained.
Therefore, the grouper product batch can maintain the weight loss to less than 2 percent after arriving in Hong Kong. Their appearance would be good; The fish will be strong, reflected in better prices, Chen Qi-hong said. Creating the “Let’s Love Fish” brand, they provide frozen fish and fish slices for the domestic market.
[By Sharon Lin / tr. by Wendy Kuo]