Local shrimp farm Saipan SyAqua Aquaculture now exports hundreds of pounds of fresh chilled shrimp to the U.S. mainland, months after breaking into the Guam military and civilian market.
Rommel G. Catalma, operations manager of Saipan SyAqua, and Paul Zak, a marketing and sales consultant for the local firm, yesterday said the trial shipment to Seattle in Washington State which serves as entry point to the U.S. began in June, and they are soon expecting the order for the fourth shipment.
“We are optimistic that we are going to sell thousands of pounds [of fresh chilled shrimp] a month with this,” Zak told Saipan Tribune in an interview at the shrimp farm in China Town.
He said the distributor in Seattle they're doing business with supplies seafood products to some 1,200 high-end restaurants and businesses. Zak said they could not divulge the name of the Seattle firm at this time, adding that shrimp from their shipments also reached as far as New York City, Knoxville in Tennessee, and Dallas in Texas.
“We are a boutique shrimp farm. We grow shrimp for a select clientele and not for mass market. We cater to customers who know the difference in taste between frozen and chilled shrimp. We don't compete with countries like Asian countries that export millions of pounds of shrimp,” said Zak.
Besides exporting fresh chilled shrimp, Saipan SyAqua's niche market is also those into organic food products.
“These are organic shrimp because there are no pesticides and antibiotics used. We go after the kind of customers that expect quality and who can tell the difference between frozen and chilled shrimp,” Zak added.
Saipan SyAqua, owned by businessman Anthony Pellegrino, is also the only company in the CNMI that has been able to export parent shrimp or broodstock to Vietnam and Indonesia. Zak said exporting broodstock is a significant portion of the local farm business.
“As Mr. Pellegrino said, we can grow more than what the local market needs, and this is why we export to Guam and now to the U.S. We also export broodstock to Asian countries,” Zak added.
The consultant said Saipan SyAqua has been working with Triple B to ship the fresh chilled shrimp to Seattle within 17 hours after the shipment leaves Saipan. Zak said Triple B has been “fairly service-oriented” to help local businesses like Saipan SyAqua.
“We are selling fresh chilled shrimp, not frozen, so shelf life is very critical,” said Catalma. The shrimp arrives alive at the intended destination.
10 pct. off price
Fresh chilled shrimp costs more than frozen shrimp. On Saipan alone, a pound of medium-sized fresh chilled shrimp from Saipan SyAqua costs $8, whereas frozen shrimp of the same quantity and size costs about $5.
For the month of August, however, Saipan SyAqua is reducing the price of its fresh chilled shrimp by 10 percent for retail and wholesale.
Saipan SyAqua started exporting chilled shrimp to the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy commissaries in Guam in December. It also supplies shrimp to hotels and other businesses in Guam, even though there are four shrimp farms on the island.
Zak said Guam is a “very competitive market.” He said the company's experience in exporting shrimp to Guam taught them a lot of things which they now use to enter the U.S. mainland market, including shipment, frequency of flights, freight cost, and transporting or handling the product by the time it leaves the plane.
Currently, Saipan SyAqua is the only shrimp farm outside of Hawaii that exports Pacific white shrimp broodstock. This is because under the law, only U.S. territories are allowed to export the broodstock of that particular specie since it was developed by Hawaii's Oceanic Institute.
It has also passed stringent requirements, including a two-year disease-free certification from the University of Arizona and then pass the inspection of the department of fisheries of the particular country it is exporting to.
At any given time, Saipan SyAqua has a million shrimps at its facility in China Town. Production, meanwhile, is around 6,000 lbs a month and increasing.
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