For Mr. xiaoni, the big fan of tuna sashimi in Hangzhou, weekly purchasing a piece of tuna sashimi which costs more than 200 RMB at the supermarket which locates in the ground floor of Hangzhou Mansion is the most enjoyable moment for him.
Now, we have the good news for you: Zhejiang Ocean Family Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Ocean Family), owned by Wanxiang Group, decides to be the “courier” of deep-sea delicacies. At the end of February 2011, in Ningbo Free Trade Zone, Ocean Family launches a super-frozen tuna processing base which owns a cold storage with the capacity of 1000 tons and has the annual processing capacity of 10,000 tons tuna products.
So, what’s super-frozen? Fishes, weighting from tens kilograms to hundreds kilograms per piece, have been kept under the state of -60 ℃ since caught from the Pacific fishing fields. In this way, Ocean Family maintains the taste and freshness at the maximum level.
Recently, our reporters visit this biggest tuna processing base in eastern China and experience the super skills and hardships of how workshop workers process these big tunas at the state of low temperature.
18 fishing vessels explore “gold mine” in the deep sea
November 28th, in Ningbo Beilun Free Trade Zone, the phone line of Mr. Hanyicheng, the general manager of Ocean Family’s Fengsheng Food Co., Ltd., keeps busy. A few days before, 150 tons tunas caught from Western and Central Pacific have been delivered to the company’s processing base. The processed tuna products will be supplied to Shanghai market.
Mr. Hanyicheng says: currently, there are 18 super-frozen tuna longline fishing vessels operating in relative fishing fields at Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and India Ocean. It’s expected that the whole company can catch 5,000 tons tunas within a year. Fengsheng Food Co., Ltd. started the tuna processing at March this tear. At end of October, within 7 months, Fengsheng processed around 3,000 tons tunas and its sales revenues has reached 0.44 billion RMB.
Mr. Hanyicheng introduces: in the past, the fishing and processing of tunas has been controlled by Japan, Korea and other countries. It’s largely because domestic enterprises face the technological shortage of freshness retaining and ultra-low temperature freezing. Now, Wanxiang’s fishing vessels all own cold storages, having the capability to rapidly freeze tunas into -60℃ condition.
After having tunas caught, the crews use rubber hammers to knock tunas weighting around dozens of kilograms to be unconscious. This action can prevent the bleeding of muscle, during tunas’ struggling process, finally to affect the quality of tuna meat. Then, the crews quickly remove tunas’ guts, blood and tails, put environment-friendly ice into tunas’ belly, and freeze tunas into -60℃ condition. Lastly, these tunas are shipped to the super-frozen processing base in Ningbo Free Trade Zone.
Mr. Hanyicheng tells reporters: one fishing vessel averagely can catch 20 tons tunas per month. 60% of these tunas are big tunas weighting more than 40 kilograms. The current price of such tunas is up to 14,000 to 15,000 US Dollars per ton.
Super-frozen tuna processing base, racing against time to maintain the freshness
In the morning on November 28th, Ocean Family’s Fengsheng Food Co., Ltd. at Ningbo Free Trade Zone, reporters experience to be workers in the tuna processing workshop.
Having working clothes, hat, mask and special boots, reporters still have to go through several disinfection measures such as wind-spraying, washing- hands, washing- boots and drying and then enter the workshop. In the workshop, there are more than a dozen large-scale sawing equipments. These equipments are all imported from Japan.
Before reporters’ arriving, dozens workers already started to process tunas shipped from Pacific at 7:30 PM. Tunas dispatched from super-frozen storage are moved to the crude processing line. Then workers split tunas into big blocks by using sharp sawing equipments. Near sawing equipments, workers remove skins, bones and unnecessary meats by using sharp shavers. Next to the crude processing workshop, it’s the refining processing workshop. In there, tunas after crude processing procedure will be cut into small pieces, according to customers’ requirements. After packaging process, products are moved back the super-frozen storage immediately.
Reporters experience the skinning process. After ultra-low temperature freezing, tunas’ bodies are very hard. Skinning is definitely a muscular labor. Without a strong physical force, you even cannot finish a morning working-shift.
After entering the workshop, reporters don’t feel very cold. Mr. Lejiabo, the assistant of general manger of Fengsheng Food Co., Ltd. who is accompanying reporters, tells reporters: the processing workshop is connected to the super-frozen storage. However, the temperature can’t be at -60℃. Otherwise, workers will be unable to bear. Therefore, in the processing workshop, workers’ processing speed must be very quick and processing techniques must be very skilled. The total processing time of a fish, from dispatching out of super-frozen storage to processing and back to super-frozen storage is less than a half hour.
Lower the costs, tunas “swim” onto citizens’ dinning-tables
With the increase of people’s living standard, tunas, such luxurious deep-sea products, are getting more and more attention from domestic consumers. “Choosing super-frozen supply chain, even for tunas from Pacific Ocean area, it’s still able to offer bulk supply.” Mr. Hanyicheng tells reporters. If choosing chilled air transportation, we can only deliver 2 pieces tunas per air plane. The shipment cost is very high and it’s hard to offer bulk supply. Take the belly meat of most expensive bluefin tuna as an example, the wholesale price can be 1,200 RMB per kilogram through super-frozen supply chain. But through chilled air transportation, the cost is 2,400 RMB per kilogram. Clearly, super-frozen supply chain can largely reduce the cost.
According to Mr. Hanyicheng, through super-frozen supply chain, the current wholesale price of tunas is around 200 RMB per kilogram. The wholesale price of yellowfin tuna is about 260 RMB per kilogram to 300 RMB per kilogram. The price is much cheaper than the price in the past.
“Right now, the annual consumption of salmon in the domestic market is more than 100,000 tons. And the scale of the market of tunas is very similar.” Mr. Hanyicheng introduces. Ocean Family has set up 12 high-end seafood counters, 2 wholesale stores, and 1 franchised boutique in big or medium-sized cities such as Hangzhou, Shanghai, Suzhou, Beijing, Shenyang and etc. Moreover, Ocean Family also launches its online store in Tmall.com. Most high-end hotels in Hangzhou are using Ocean Family’s tuna products.
Mr. Hanyicheng says: since the company started to strengthen the development of the domestic market from June, the monthly sales revenue has reached more than 2 million RMB. The increase is quite obvious. In the meaning time, along with the increasing demands of sales of processing products, the capacity of current super-frozen storage is not enough. Ocean Family is planning to build up a new super-frozen storage with the capacity of 30,000 tons in Ningbo Meishan Free Trade Zone. This new storage will be used not only for the processing of super-frozen tunas, but also for the logistics of other imported super-frozen products.
(Quoted from www.zjol.com.cn--Qianjiang Evening News) |
