Business Times, 16 February 2011
A JAPANESE industrialist's concern for depleting aquaculture resources - notably soft-shell crabs - has resulted in a scientific effort in Penang to reduce dependence on wild-caught crabs.
Texchem Food Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Texchem Resources Bhd (8702), has started laboratory-scale trials and experiments in the hatchery process of the mud crab.
Texchem Food, which has been engaged in the seafood business for over three decades, is positioning itself as the world's largest processor and exporter of soft-shell crabs with access to a consistent supply of crabs in the region over over 100 tonnes per month.
The company - which has seafood processing facilities in Malaysia and Myanmar - currently exports its soft-shell crabs to markets like the US, China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and several European countries. Texchem Food last month signed a two-year memorandum of agreement with Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) to jointly study and do pilot-scale trials at the university's Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies (CEMACS) in Muka Head, Penang.
Texchem Food also contributed RM200,000 last week to the centre for the pilot project. Texchem Resources chairman and chief executive officer Tan Sri Fumihiko Konishi, who is mindful of the sustainability of natural resources and always ahead of the times with business trends, has not missed a beat in anticipating how an increasing market demand of soft-shell crabs will eventually stress the crab fishery.
His initiative at developing a local in-house hatchery expertise for soft-shell crabs is aimed at acquiring the capability to produce crablets (or seeds). Over the past year, experimental-scale seed production of the mud crab has been carried out by Texchem Food at its facility on mainland Penang.
Hatched at the Texchem site, the crablets are grown individually in plastic compartment. When these mature, they are selected as crab specimens and may be used as broodstock to produce the next generation of crablets. The hatchery-derived crablets will then be grown into suitably-sized crabs for us in the soft-shell shedding operations.
"The species that we are working on currently is the 'Scylla Serrata', which is the largest of the four mud crab species," said Konishi. He said the seawater required for the work is trucked from Teluk Ba hang on Penang Island, via chemical bulk containers.
The seawater is then subjected to a very thorough filtration process and ultra-violet light treatment before it is used in the larval culture. Konishi said two approaches to larval-rearing were used and compared and this involved the conventional semi-batch approach, along with the "recirculating" approach.
"In the former, the culture water is subject to periodic seawater exchanges while in the latter, the culture water is continously recirculated through a process of filtration and bio-filtration in order to maintain the water quality. "In both approaches, antibiotics were not applied and the results have been encouraging," Konishi explained.
As Texchem Resources looks to the next phase of work in optimising its mud crab hatchery with USM's CEMACS experts at Muka Head, work will zoom in on optimisation and pilot-scale seed production.
Konishi has not ruled out the possibility of Malaysia's suitable location and availability of mangroves to cultivate the soft-shell crabs, instead of doing this abroad.
Source: Business Times
