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Hawaii
broodstock firm receives permit to sell its
product to Thailand
Thailand has granted
Hawaii-based Kona Marine Resources Inc. a permit
to sell its disease-free and disease-resistant
shrimp broodstock in the Asian country, only
the third permit Thailand has issued worldwide.
The company received
the permit this summer and began shipping broodstock
last month. Kona Marine will increase capacity
this yearand double it next year to meet the
demand to vannamei broodstock that is expected
to come now that it has the permit, Goldstein
said.
Thailand foreasts
that 80-90 percent of its production will be
vannamei shrimp in 2004. Like other Asian nations,
Thailand is moving away from black tiger shrimp
because of ongoing problems with disease.
"There has been
a significant shift in Asia in production of
shrimp from black tiger to vannamei, so as a
rsult the need for broodstock has really gone
up. Thailand has shifted almost all its production, " Goldstein
said. "As a result, we expect to hire two
or three more people."
"Thailand is
the first country to have a licensing process
for the importation of shrimp broodstock," said
Goldstein, "and also requires Thailand companies
that import shrimp to have a license."
"We need a license
to export to Thailand and our customers need
licenses to import from us," he said. "Thailand
has begun to take their shrimp industry very
seriously with respect to managing it and ensuring
that it complies with highest industry practices.
I have not yet seen any countries following Thailand
in this regard."
Kona Marine, which
now has 11 full-tim and part-time employees,
uses technology developed at the University of
Hawaii to grow the resistant strains of vannamei
shrimp. The system involves using disease-free
deep-ocean water from off the west coast of Hawaii
Island, where the company has its production
facilities. It also uses bivalves like clams
and mussels in the shrimp tanks to keep the water
clean and help breed a hardier brand of shrimp.
The result is two
types of white shrimp: specific pathogen free
(SPF) and specific pathogen resistant (SPR).
Starting last year,
the company began exporting to China, Taiwan,
Vietnam, Indonesia and the United States. In
addition to shrimp broodstock, it exports baby
clams to clam farmers in the United States and
Mexico.
Goldstein says Kona
Marine will soon begin a new round of raising
money to fund further expansion. The company
was formed with venture-capital funding.
Goldstein wouldn't
provide exact production numbers, but says Kona
Marine controlls 35 percent of Hawaii's export
of shrimp broodstock.
from TheWave October
5, 2005 |
