Devi Seafoods, one of the largest shrimp processors and exporters in India, plans to open a 50,000-metric-ton-a-year shrimp feed mill in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, in March 2016.
The majority of the company’s frozen shrimp production is sold to the USA foodservice industry, marketed by its subsidiary Devi Seafoods Inc, in Texas.
“This is an era of elevated consumer awareness. When they buy food, people look to see that products come from an environmentally sustainable source and are produced in socially acceptable conditions, in a facility following good manufacturing processes,” said Managing Director Potru Brahmanandam,
“Buyers expect you to have BAP four-star certification. We are already using certified feed, but we wanted our own,” he said.
The Indian feed market is currently dominated by Charoen Pokphand Foods and Thai Union Group’s joint venture with Avanti Feeds. Avanti has BAP certification for its feed, allowing packers that own or source from BAP-certified farms to get four-star BAP certification.
Devi hopes that with its own feed plant it can encourage more of its supplier farmers to apply for BAP certification, which would increase the quality and safety of their shrimp.
The 50,000-metric-ton feed mill will allow Devi full control over the feed that goes to its farms and the farms it works closely with.
“We plan just to control feed through our own chain first. This is a facility to support our loyal supplier farms with quality feed input,” said Brahmanandam.
A further benefit of full control is lowering the cost of feed, which accounts for more than 60% of production costs.
Devi is one of the leading exporters of Indian shrimp, with two state-of-the-art shrimp processing plants in Andhra Pradesh, which together process around 11,000 metric tons of finished frozen shrimp in ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat forms a year.
The company was the first to begin value-added sales to the USA, in the form of individually quick frozen (IQF) shrimp for Darden and Red Lobster and also sells to Sysco.
Source: Undercurrent News via Shrimp News International. Read the full article here.
