Did you KNOW?

a. Just like crabs and lobsters prawns too must shed their shells as they grow bigger.

b. One of the main differences between prawns and their relatives, crabs and lobsters, is that prawns swim around in the water while crabs and lobsters are able to crawl on the sand.

c. Prawns and shrimps start off their four year life cycle as males and then change into females for their final year. Amazing!

d. There are over 300 different species of prawns and shrimp found in all parts of the world.

e. As with lobsters and crabs, there are cold water and warm water prawns and shrimps. Cold water prawns are located in cold water oceans such as Atlantic and Arctic, whilst warm water prawns and shrimps are located in warm water oceans such as the Pacific and Indian oceans.

f. Prawns and shrimps can be green, pink, brown, blue, white or yellow in colour before cooking, and turn pink with white meat after cooking.

PRAWN OR SHIRMP?

What is a PRAWN and what is a SHRIMP?

Is there a vast difference between the two? These are some question which might cross your mind when you ponder over buying some of these delicacies from the local fish market or while ordering an appetizing sound dish to accompany your main course. Well look no further because we have the answer right here.

In the US the generally used term is the ‘shrimp’ while the term ‘prawn’ is widely used in UK. However according to some people and cook books the term ‘prawn’ is reserved for the larger species. However, the truth is that there is indeed a slight difference between the two. The key to this rests on their grill structure. Experts reveal that prawns have a branching gill structure whilst the gill structure of shrimps is lamellar.


Another difference is found in the way the two brood their eggs. A prawn has longer legs than the shrimp and a shrimp’s front pair of pincers is larger, whilst a prawn’s second pair of pincers is bigger. Both species belong to the same family as crabs and lobsters, Decapod crustaceans which mean that they possess 10 legs and a hard shell to cover their body. The confusion arises because both varieties are somewhat similar in size and looks. 

Thinking of the future…

With the resounding success of the first two cycles of the farm, Mr. Yanase and my father decided of forward integration. The idea ended up by building an ultra modern factory in 1997 in Chilaw which was one of the most technologically sound factories in the country at that time.

The factory was built exactly in one year under the guidance and supervision of Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan. My father was sent by Mitsubishi to visit various factories of them in Singapore, Malaysia in order to get the needed knowledge in crafting this factory to the same standards.

The factory comprised with blast & plate freezing technology, cold rooms which can hold up to 80 metric tons, ice plant, water purification system, loading facilities up to 80 workers and many other facilities which were not having in most of the seafood processing factories those days.

Once the operations started it turned out to be a real success. Within 2 years of setting up of the factory we have shipped more than 90 shipments to Mitsubishi Corporation alone which can be identified as a remarkable achievement. Most of the time the factory ran for 3 shifts, virtually all 24 hours providing a wealth of employment opportunities to most of the village youth.

Indiwary Aqua processing plant specialized mainly on shrimp and crabs initially, however diversified themselves into other seafood products such as cuttlefish, squid and fish depending on the market demand.
When I look back at the past all I can see is a perfectly crafted forward integration strategy, by two gentlemen who were passionate in business. Even though they haven’t known about all these business jargon which we learn today they have used it to perfection almost two decades back without getting consultancy of any guru’s in strategy.                                 

Mr. Hisashi Yanase

He was a Japanese citizen. He was a frequent traveler to Sri Lanka. Business was not the main reason why he came to Sri Lanka. It was golf. He was a great golfer. Colombo Royal golf club was his main attraction. Even before my father came to know him, he had visited Sri Lanka for more than 14 times.

My father met him for the first time at the Golf Club. He was a businessman or an investor to be precise. He had business ventures back in Japan as well. The idea about starting a prawn farm as a Japanese collaboration was welcomed by him eagerly.

As a start Indiwary Aqua (Pvt) Ltd was set up as a BOI venture. Mr. Yanase acted as the Chairman; my father was the Managing Director and mother being the sole Directress.

During the same period a prawn farming facility was put on action by the government. It was a model prawn farm developed using the funds of Asia Development Bank (ADB) for inland fisheries. Thus it was the most ideal location identified those days for prawn farming. The facility comprised of all the facilities & equipment required to carry out a quality farming operation. My father’s bid for the tender turned out to be the highest. The bid was a thumping amount of Rs. 66Mn at that time. Further in order to bring the facility which was closed down for quite some time they spent more than another Rs. 40Mn.

I can still remember how the jungles were cleaned using heavy vehicle machinery. After the lapse of about 4 months the farm was ready for stocking for the first time.

The first 2 cycles were extremely successful. The prawns grew for a record size of more than 45g. There was a very high harvest and it went in headlines in newspapers. Mr. Yanase was very happy on the progress of his investment and there was a great relationship developing between him and our family.

He was like a grandfather to us. Every time when we heard that he is coming to Sri Lanka we eagerly await till that day. It’s a great joy for him to take hundreds of photographs of our family in different times.

Days pass by… May father build an empire

Orders for shark fin exports grew day by day. My father was soon became the largest shark fin exporter in the country. He exported to Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, China and many more countries.

My father by nature is someone who is looking for new opportunities all the time. He was not someone who can be satisfied with the current position. He always looked at the bigger picture. But he always liked the fair play in the trade and did not like to stab anyone on the back in achieving success.

Early 90’s saw another turn in the seafood exports industry. This was the time when prawn culture was developing in Sri Lanka. Multinational organizations such as Carsons Cumberbatch, Unilever were the pioneers in the prawn culture. With the little experience my father had in the seafood exports at that time he was able to understand the potential of the prawn culture in the coming years.

He wanted to venture into prawn culture. He knew that he would need a partner if he was to enter into this trade. He went in search of foreign buyers. His efforts paid off. He found a Japanese partner by the name Mr. Hishasi Yanase. This meeting made a drastic turnaround in our lives.
If I were to look back at the past if this meeting wouldn’t have happened, things would have been quite different. Thus I feel it is important that I spend some time on explaining about who Mr. Yanase is and how this meeting occurred…

Facts about me & who I am?

I started this blog about 4 years back.

This was initially started as a part of a project work for the degree. Thereafter this was non functional for quite some time. Only last week that it clicked my mind that I should again resurrect this old piece of work.

Initially when I published this site I preferred to stay on the basis of anonymity since this was originally planned as an academic piece of work. Thus I did not reveal the exact connection of me to the content of the site. Someone who is known would surely derive the link but for many it would be hard to grasp.

In the earlier posts I have spoken about a seafood processing factory which my father owns. But very less had been written thereafter.

When I was glancing through the blog it suddenly clicked my mind that I should published the legendary story of our family business which my father created. Some might argue that ‘legendary’ is not the most appropriate word, but for me it seems as the more ideal since no one other than who is gifted with some special power would be able to build such a business in quite a succession.

To introduce me I am Indiwary Silva (Fernando). My father was Milroy Fernando & my mother is Vajira.

Almost 2 decades back my father was working for Union Carbide (producers of Eveready batteries). Even though he was working there he always wanted to excel in a business of his own. He was from Negombo which was famous for seafood, and my father saw seafood as a business with a future. He saw the future in this business in a larger scale than most of the others saw. He always wanted to start an export business in seafood.

In early 90’s Union Carbide selected my father and a few others to be sent on a training mission to Malaysia. For my father this was important in 2 ways. Firstly this was a training mission for my father. Secondly this was a mission in search of seafood buyers.

My father wanted to find buyers but he was not 100% sure as to how to find a good buyer. His break came in a surprising way. There was a servant in our home those days and whose sister was in Malaysia. Upon hearing my father’s trip to Malaysia he wanted to send a parcel to his sister. My father also took it. One day in Malaysia after his training, my father sets himself to find this home where this servant boy’s sister worked. My father finds her, hand over the parcel, and asks just because of the curiosity whether she knew anyone who would be interested to buy seafood from Sri Lanka. The response was overwhelming. The destiny has bought my father to the home of one of the biggest Shark Fin importers in Malaysia. The sister of the servant boy quickly sets up an appointment for my father with this Malaysian and the meeting ends up with a success. He was a gentleman by the name of Lin which bought my father the success.

Upon arrival in Sri Lanka my father takes up the new challenge in learning about shark fins. Even though my father was from Negombo, fish exports are totally a new experience to him. He learnt fast. Does the first trail order and the buyer starts to request more volumes. My father initially sends the required quantity from Negombo, but when the time passes by & when the demand increases moves to collect shark fins from the southern coast as well. Always Mr.Lin used to send some extra money than what he promised for a shipment, as a gratitude for the quality and the devotion my father had for the business. He does office work during office hours and concentrates on the export business afterwards. My mother was a strong pillar in supporting him for his endeavors.

One day the Mr. Lin made an open offer for my father. That is to give up the job at Union Carbide and start to do shark fin exports full time. It was a challenging offer. In return my father had one question to ask. That was, if the demand for shark fins diminishes one day, whether Mr. Lin would still support him to take care of his family. Mr. Lin trusted my father more than a business partner and wanted his company more than ever before. Thus after discussing with my mother my father decided to give up his job which he was in for more than 15 years and venture into a new business.

That was how my father, Milroy Fernando entered into seafood business in the early 90’s.

Intermission…

Think positively! Good chance to invest in...

Investors would always be interested in finding lucrative industries to invest in. A true investor senses the real oppertunity. In my opinion looking at all the positives which are lying around seafood industry in Sri Lanka seems to be one of the most lucrative industries to touch upon in the comming few years.

There are many reasons for me to tell like that,

The readers should bear with me for only concentrating on the deamand created for the processing factories from the above mentioned scenario since I am only concentrating on the investment potential.

As I mentioned in my last post as well, there would be a great influx of seafood to Colombo from N&E as soon as the A9 is open.

On the other hand most of the processing factories currently uses about 50-60% of their operational capasity using the current supply from the rest of the country. One million dollar question would be whether Colombo based processing factories have the capasity to entertain the large influx from N&E. Here I do not necessarily mean that all the current processing factory owners should look at increasing their current operational capasity or build new facilities aiming at the influx. But mind you, there are quite a number of people who have already started the negotiations to set up new facilities. Many more are looking forward to enter into the industry.

There is another perspective to the problem in concern. Rather than trying to bring down the N&E catch to Colombo, if someone take the initiative and sets up factories in the Nothern part of the country to cater for the N&E catch then it would also have a lot of positives. It would create a lot of job oppertunities to the unemployed youth, it would reduce the spoilage during transportation and allows the development of the seafood industry as a value adding cluster in the Northern part of the country.

Many would not know that Nothern part of the country had more than a dozen seafood processing factories before the seperatist war broke out. They processed the seafood catch of N&E. The breaking out of the war saw the closing down of all those factories which operated in the North. Then only in the late 80's we saw the setting up of processing factories in the Western province.

Also when processing factories were in operation in the early 80's South India did not have more than one or two factories which specialised in seafood exports. But after the war broke out seafood processing factories mashroomed in South India. This is an indication how India benefited due to the war of Sri Lanka.

I heard from very informed sources that currently there are few seafood processing factories being constructed in Trincomalee in the Eastern part of the country. Also there is news that many cold storage facilities are being constructed in the North. Further government is in the verge of supplying the needed fishing gear to uplift the profession of the fishermen in the North. Thus we can be assured that we are going to get a good time in the coming years.

On the demand side the world demand for seafood have been on the increase for the last few decades. If Sri Lanka generates quality seafood the potential would be immense.

Due to that I hope this is the right time for the investors to look at seafood industry as a lucrative investment for the future. many established organizations have identified the potential and are making arrangements to conquer the North.

The first mover would always have an advantage as in all other cases....

Back to the good old days!

I am writing on this blog after the lapse of more than 3 years. Many things have changed from then to now. Country situation have changed dramatically, economy is overcoming a period of global recession and there are a lot of changes with regard to the seafood industry as well.

Couple of months back we witnessed the end to the seperatist war which ran for more than 2 dacades. The coastal belt in the N&E which was not open for fishing for many years have now been open again for the local fishermen.

The N&E breeding grounds which have not been fished for nearly 2 decades would be full of resources, and Sri Lankan fishermen can be sure of getting a good income for their living in the comming months.

Eventhough fishing restrictions in the N&E have been taken off, still the A9 is not fully open. Thus we still have a problem in getting the fish catch down to Colombo. But we can be assured that it would not be long for us to see huge seafood quantities arriving in Colombo from N&E as soon as the A9 is open.

Also in the last couple of years the trend in Sri Lankan seafood exports also have changed drastically. Initially Sri Lanka exported large volumes of Shrimps. Now with the global demand shifting towards Tuna, Sri Lankan too have ventured into tuna exports.

There are quite a few processing factory owners currently who have mastered the art of tuna exports to EU countries in the last couple of years. And there are many more who are catching up the art of tuna loining very fast. Thus we see a very good trend in the development of tuna exports in Sri Lanka.

Industrial Visit At The Sea Food Processing Factory

Last Saturday on the 31^st of December few of the batch mates made a tour to the factory of my father. It was full of fun and excitement and for me too was a great experience. All got a through understanding of the operations process which takes place in the factory. Most of them were amazed to see the effort put into it for processing and the processes used in order to market the products in the European markets. It is much more than just sending sea food to a foreign country in a container.

All got the rare opportunity of observing the almost all the stages of the entire operations process starting from the purchasing of the materials from the suppliers, unloading, weighing and categorising depending on the weight, cleaning, putting, arranging, freezing, loading for the shipment.

Later in the day all went to the farm of us which is located some kilometres down to Puttlam road and got an insight about the aqua culturing. I think all were amazed to see how technical it is and how hard it would be to manage a farm which spans across many acres with utmost care whilst ensuring the quality of an array of measurements needed to the development of healthy prawns.

They got one of the rarest opportunities one would get, which is to get inside a hatchery where the breeding takes place and to see how it all happens. Even for me one of the great experiences was to see a mother prawn weighing 320g which had produced more than 45,000 babies. We visited the ponds where the prawn develops into the mature stage and all got a briefing from the Chief Quality Supervisor about the entire process.

At the end the back at the factory all had a friendly discussion as to how the marketing aspect happen for the exported sea food from Sri Lanka and the developments in the international sea food markets.

At the end of the day I feel very happy about the outing and I think all who visited would have also felt the same apart from the vast amount experience all gained during the visit.

Increasing Demand for Sea Food in the World Market

The trend in the world for the last few decades was to move back to the natural products; organic products, hybrid cars, etc... And the sea food in most parts of the world could be identified as one of the most preferred choices of the people who prefer the natural products. There is a belief in most of them that the fish products give the best nourishment in all the meat products which we consume.

Especially in the main markets for Sri Lankan sea food industry the demand trend for the last decade or so was quite fascinating. Out of the three main markets namely; Europe, USA and Japan both the Europe and USA has shown a huge demand whilst Japan also has shown a very steady increase in the sea food consumption in the last few years.

The main competitive advantage of Sri Lanka for the entirety of the transport /export timeline was the quality which Sri Lanka is renowned for. When compared with the main competitors of Sri Lanka such as Indian’s, Thai’s and the Indonesian’s who mostly concentrate on the volume exports Sri Lanka holds the advantage of being the best quality supplier in the region. Due to that the increase in demand in those international markets which accounts for the majority of the total world sea food consumption gives a very positive signal for a bright future ahead for the sea food industry in Sri Lanka.

Especially it’s important for the country to have a long term vision for the development of the sea food business which has a similar potential as tourism. If I bring to you one good example the potential of it is, before the war erupted in Jaffna there were 3 factories who did the exporting and in the Tamilnadu area there were no sea food exporters. But with the war starting the Sri Lankan exporters had to close down those 3 factories whilst the Indians opened up 3 factories in the Tamilnadu area. Currently the joined income of those 3 factories amounts to more than 10 million US dollars per month. So for the last 20 years if that money came to Sri Lanka, the country should have earned more than 2,400 million US dollars which was a very huge sum which we lost due to the war.

Due to the fact that there would be a huge demand from those markets of the developed countries for ‘ready to eat sea food products’ which would outclass the traditional shelf bought cook, fried or battered sea food products. The country should seriously think of some way to take the maximum use of the existing competitive advantages to good use and develop a firm range of value added and branded products of some nature to meet the world demand in another 10 years time.

Sri Lankan Sea Food Suppliers

The sea food industry of Sri Lanka can be divided into many small parts. Broadly it can be divided into the classification such as domestic trade and the international trade. In the domestic trade also there are various types of people concentrating on various different target groups in the country.

There are the small fish sellers all around the country. And there are these sellers such as the ‘Fresh Fish’ who are selling to a much higher target group with an extensive range of outlets in Colombo and suburbs. Furthermore with the introduction of the Supermarkets to this country there are some of the value added products marketed by the Sri Lankan businessmen such as cleaned packeted cuttle fish, Peeled prawns etc… which has a high demand.

Apart from that there are many exporters who exports sea food based products to the International market. There are around ten major suppliers of the processed sea food to the European, Japanese and the USA markets such as the Agro Marine, Alpex Marine, Secco and Indiwary Aqua to name a few. These suppliers process the sea food in factories mainly situated in the Western Province which are constructed according to the highest international quality standards. The highest income of the sea food exports comes from the tuna, shrimps and crabs whilst the other sea food exports such as lobsters, crab shells, octopus, shark fins also brings a substantial amount of foreign income to the country.

Few years back Sri Lankan suppliers used to produce the fish and by farming specially designed for the breeding of the prawns for the international market but the White Spot Disease which affected the entire prawn farming nearly flattened the industry. But due to the determination of the businessmen who were involved in the industry they were able to find out other means and survive in the market. Now this could be identified as a prime source of income generator to the country in the years to come.

History of Sea food processing in Sri Lanka

Even thought there might be some sort of fishing and consumption of sea food from the early days, the sea food exports of Sri Lanka has a very short history. Sri Lanka has a very good location advantage compared to most of the other countries for the sea food industry. Especially the coastal belt in the North and Eastern parts of the country can be rated as some of the best fishing areas in the region which has all the fundamental requirements which is needed for quality fish breeding.

At the earliest stages very few businessmen exported sea food to the foreign countries. They directly purchased the sea food from the sea mongers and sent them abroad in iced packs without doing any processing. But since there is a good environment for fishing in Sri Lanka they later focussed into more volume based methods.

Normally the fish needs a shallow sea. The rock beds which spans across the North and Eastern costal belt provides the shelter for the small fish to breed well. And the salt composition of the sea in that area is also at the best level for fish. Due to those factors the costal belt of Sri Lanka is a fishing paradise. In the early stages of the fishing exports few companies set up their plants in the Jaffna Peninsula and started to operate from there. During this period the total export was from the sea catch. But with the riots erupting they had to close down their factories and move to the Western costal belt.

And then big multinationals operating in the country such as Unilever and Carson Cumberbatch the concept of Aquaculture was bought to Sri Lanka for Prawns. In this they breed the prawns in hatcheries and developed much higher quality of sea food products. And then the golden age of the sea food processing industry came in the early 90’s. But the White Spot disease destroyed the success of that in a very short period.

But now slowly but steadily the industry is growing again and now it heavily depends on the sea catch once more again. And the high variety of sea food products has given the exporters to minimize their risk of investment because during the periods of low supply of certain varieties they can always depend on the other varieties.

Now the sea food processing have developed to a stage where the exporters always try to do some value addition and market their products to a higher segment of the market always which could be seen as a positive improvement for the future of the industry in Sri Lanka. But the ultimate realization of the industry would be to produce the high end products such as the ‘Ready To Eat sea food products’ to the EU counties, but there is a long way to go to achieve this position. But if the industry improves on like this and the governments gives the proper attention to the industry the future is very bright.

White Spot Disease

The prawns at the top and right of the picture shows the pick body colour typical for the acute phase of infetcion. The bottom and the left hand side pictute shows the classical White Spot Diseased after the acture phase

For most of you who are not familiar to the topic of Aqua Culture Industry this would sound as an unfamiliar term, but for the one’s engage in the industry this would be a term which bring back some horrible memories. To be straight forward this is the diseases that made a big lost and damaged to the shrimp culturing industry which brought lot of foreign exchange to the county as well as kept remain 80% of net profit within the country of its exports. Many countries which exported in volume base in South Asian Region such as India, Sri Lanka, Thaiwan, Vitenam etc got affected by this horrible disease and there were many people wiped out from this aqua culturing industry.

The early 90’s was the period where the prawn farming came to the climax for anyone looking at it at a glance would be seen as a mine of gold. During this period a few major exporters dominated the marketplace and earned huge amount of profits. During this period more than 4000 acres of land were used for the aquaculture. Almost all the lands which was suitable for prawn faming was utilised at this stage. But with the government change in the year of 1994 the supporters of the newly elected government by force acquired the reservation lands and started to do the farming. Due to this factor within one year the land used for farming skyrocketed to 12000 acres. And the hatcheries used to produce the baby prawns mushroomed from 4 to more than 100. But sufficient qualified personnel needed for the maintenance of these hatcheries were not to be found in Sri Lanka and most of the hatcheries maintained a very low standard in terms of the quality. Furthermore the water supply to those farms was mainly from the lagoons through the canals such as Hamilton Canal using the high and the low tide of the sea. But due to the excess land capacity the water systems started to malfunction and the polluted water got stagnated in many of the prawn farms giving the chance for diseases to generate and kill the prawns. At the end the disease affected the whole South Asia to a considerable extent making a great loss to the country’s foreign income generation.

The blame of this devastation could be finger pointed directly at the government which was so inefficient both pre & post to the disease. Normally for a business of this nature the quality standards plays as the fundamental theme for success. But when the new suppliers mushroomed the government did very little checking into the quality standards of them both at the start up stage and when they are moving on with the operation. But at the end due to the determination of few of the original suppliers still the industry is running and showing signs of the good days again with the continues demand increase in the last few years.

So by now onwards at least if the government can look forward and get their acts together and give the best support to the industries as these which has a very high growth potential Sri Lanka would develop to a much higher state.

Current State of the Sea Food Exports of Sri Lanka.

Sea Food Industry is one of the industries which had become one of the great income generators for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka having being an island blessed with a sea bed around the whole country has many varieties of fish which can be processed and exported to foreign countries.

Sea food exports comprises of many suppliers in Sri Lanka specially in the coastal belt of the country. The major exports of the country is done by few major exporters each specializing in one or two areas as shark fins, cut and clean crabs and crab meat, prawns, cuttle fish etc… The main markets for which Sri Lanka exports its production are the markets of Japan, USA and Europe.

Even though the exports of Sri Lanka generates good amount of income to the country there are a lot of other areas to which the country can specialize in such as the value added products specially to the up market client-tele in the European counties. The other countries specialize in this trade are the countries such as India, China, Thaiwan, Vietnam ect. but Sri Lanka holds a crucial competitive advantage over them in terms of the location advantage. In addition to that the quality maintained by the operators who supply the processed sea food to the foreign countries can be easily outclass any other competitor in the region. But the lack of interest and the support given by all the governments which ruled the country has resulted in the lack of technological adaptation in the country for this industry which the other competing countries have capitalized on. Due to these reasons if the countries governing bodies looks into these areas and try to get the right acts together Sri Lanka and its sea food processing suppliers can give Sri Lanka a big sum of Foreign Exchange and employment opportunities for many of the youth in the country in a very short period.

Marketing Division

Marketing Division

Product Range :
Headless shell on Black Tinger
Head on Black Tiger
Headless sea caught white prawns
Headless sea caught flower
Jumbo headless sea caught black tiger.
Peeled un devained prawns (PUD)
Swimming Crabs
Cuttle Fish

Sea Food Processing for International Market in SriLanka !!!

In the world, there is a huge international market for Sri Lankan sea food products. Such as Prawns (Shrimps), Cuttle Fish, Cut Crabs, Lobsters, Octopus, many varieties of Fishes.

Here in Sri Lanka, there are some major exporters which do involve in exporting processed frozan and packed sea food items according to the buyers requirments in many part of the world. We do exports mainly to Japan, USA , Europe and Midle East markets.

Indiwary Aqua (Pvt) Ltd is one of the largest exporters of Processed sea food ( Shrimps, Cut Crab) to Japan and USA in Sri Lanka.

Company Information

The Company : Indiwary Aqua (Pvt) Ltd.
Legal Form : A private limited company in corporation in Sri Lanka under the companies Act No 17 of 1982 in 1992 as a private limited company.
Company Registation No :
Principal Place of Business : St. Martin Industrial Park
Bangadeniya, Chilaw,
Sri Lanka.
Tel : 0773159009

E-mail : indiwary19@yahoo.com; vajirasf@gmail.com
Blog Site : www.seafoodexports.blogspot.com

Marketing Division
Product Range :

Headless shell on Black Tinger

Head on Black Tiger

Headless sea caught white prawns

Headless sea caught flower

Jumbo headless sea caught black tiger.

Peeled un devained prawns (PUD)

Swimming Crabs Cuttle Fish