In order to promote the "South Fish Traveling to the North", Hainan, a major aquaculture province, launched the promotion plan of "Hainan snapper" the year before last, and Guangdong, also a major aquaculture province, also started the cultivation of "crispy tilapia" five or six years ago, seeking a breakthrough in domestic sales.
Now, the "new hope" of southern tilapia-crispy meat has gradually surfaced. I just don't know whether this "new fish species" with the potential of online celebrities can bring new variables to the domestic market of tilapia.
Also an exotic species, tilapia is not as lucky as crayfish and bullfrog, and can become a national dish. Although tilapia cultured in southern China has firmly occupied the sixth place in aquaculture production in China.
Moreover, it has occupied a considerable market share in the international markets such as the United States for a long time, but the domestic consumption market is still limited to Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan, and the southern tilapia breeding industry has been stuck in the "bottleneck" for many years.
Although the global demand for tilapia will continue to grow, tilapia farming in China is far from quenching its thirst with water.
The largest overseas American market has been greatly impacted by the Sino-US trade war. However, the development of other overseas markets is full of difficulties due to fierce competition and trade barriers, and as a result, they are forced to come back to develop the domestic market.
Fools don't want to develop the domestic market, but after so many years, in addition to domestic consumption has already greatly exceeded the export volume, the southern tilapia is estimated to be unable to touch the Yangtze River and cross the river.
At the end of last century and the beginning of this century, a way to earn foreign exchange through export saved the southern tilapia breeding industry that had just started at that time. However, with the continuous increase of Roffe's output, the export market began to "saturate" and the domestic market expanded slowly, which kept the price of tilapia at a low level, and the domestic tilapia breeding industry was in a state of "internal consumption". Finding a breakthrough in domestic sales has become the only way for southern tilapia breeding industry to achieve self-help.
From crispy pomfret to crispy meat.
Guangdong people, who can eat and toss, use broad beans as feed to raise the famous crispy grass carp, which is famous for its crispy meat, and its price is much higher than that of ordinary grass carp, with obvious economic benefits.
Seeing the success of crispy pomfret, some flexible farmers tried to transplant this practice to tilapia, hoping to replicate a similar road, but they encountered no small obstacles.
Although tilapia is also an omnivorous fish, fermented broad beans can also be used as feed. However, due to the thin intestinal wall of tilapia, the digestive system is much weaker than that of grass carp. At the initial stage of the experiment, farmers encountered a serious problem: after feeding tilapia with broad bean feed for 30 days, a large number of fish would die.
Because of this problem, most of the tried farmers ended in failure, but some farmers still refused to give up and continued to tackle the fragile tilapia breeding problem by adjusting the feed formula.
Finally, during the period of 20 18 -20 19, some farmers gradually mastered the breeding technology of crispy Africa by constantly adjusting the feed formula, and controlled the loss rate of tilapia below 5%, clearing the way for large-scale commercial breeding in crispy Africa.
The restaurant consumes 20 thousand Jin every day.
After more than five years of development, with Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Maoming in Guangdong as the main breeding bases, the crispy non-breeding industry has begun to take shape, and even Hainan has begun to lay out. Because the crispy skin is not fleshy, the original vegetarian tilapia has a new selling point and even some negative reputation.
Because the price of crispy meat carp soared in the freshwater fish market in the first half of this year, many restaurants specializing in crispy meat carp in South China were miserable. A sharp price increase will seriously dampen diners' desire to enter the store. What can we do without signature dishes? The plight of these restaurants provides an excellent opportunity for Cui Fei to take the lead.
Take the market in the Pearl River Delta region of South China in early September as an example. The pond head price of crispy pomfret 1.4 kg/tail is about 1.6 yuan/kg, and the pond head price of fresh crispy pomfret/tail is 1.5 ~ 1.8 yuan/kg, which has a price advantage.
Coupled with the characteristics of "crispy meat", many restaurants try to use crispy meat instead of crispy meat. Because crisp meat is crisp, it is not without intermuscular thorns, but also with the umami flavor of fish, which quickly won the favor of diners.
According to industry estimates, the non-daily consumption of fresh and crisp food in restaurants in South China is now 20,000.
Gold or so, there has been a certain market scale, but the problem is that fresh crisp carp is a different route, and its limitations are naturally very obvious. Crispy pomfret has been in South China for so many years, and its main consumer market is still in South China. Even if it has its own characteristics, it is impossible to break through the market restrictions of this "crispy fish". Therefore, for Cui Fei, if he wants to take the national route, he must change his mind.
Hot pot, Luchuan and prefabricated vegetables
It is really difficult to find out why tilapia is not acclimatized in China, because the high-quality tilapia produced in southern China are basically "perfect" freshwater fish: no intermuscular spines, low fat and high protein, and no muddy smell.
Speaking of muddy smell, many people say that tilapia is a kind of "smelly fish" with a strong smell. In fact, the fishy smell of tilapia is mainly affected by the water quality.
Tilapia is cultured in high-density soil ponds, and the water quality is turbid. Some algae will produce a very obvious muddy smell, but this is not irreversible. At present, the conventional practice of tilapia farming is to use hanging water to solve the problem of muddy smell.
After the tilapia leaves Tangqian, it should be raised in a low-density clear water pond for about a month, and only a small amount of feed is fed, which can not only remove the fishy smell, but also "reduce fat and slim down" the fish and enhance its taste.
Generally speaking, the quality of tilapia itself is excellent, but neither fresh fish nor special fillets for catering have opened up the situation in the national market, which is very embarrassing.
Especially in the catering market, with the popularity of Sichuan cuisine such as pickled fish and boiling fish, tilapia fillets have been at a disadvantage in the competition with local snakehead and imported Basha fish. Of course, there is another important reason, because tilapia meat is tender and easy to cook, and the crispness now just makes up for this defect.
Crispy can be cooked for 50 minutes, which is very suitable for developing various fish fillet dishes. Some large aquatic products processing enterprises in Guangdong naturally saw the development prospect of crisp and began to lay out their business in this area.
One direction is naturally the catering industry. Because of the epidemic, the import of Vietnamese Basha fish was blocked, and the prices of freshwater fish such as grass carp and snakehead rose, giving crispy and very good development space. If used properly, it may open up a new situation.
The other direction is the retail market. Tilapia is not well-known because it comes from South China. Of course, a large part of the reason is that tilapia has a bad reputation among the people, which leads many dealers to be indifferent to tilapia.
Some manufacturers also learn from the practice of renaming tilapia in Hainan, and some name the prefabricated tilapia slices as jade snapper slices. If the retail market can accept it, it will be a good breakthrough to build net red fish.
Tilapia has a long history in China, with an annual output of nearly 3 million tons. However, for domestic consumers, the positioning of tilapia has always been vague, and it is difficult to stand out from the traditional fish species such as the four major fish and snakehead.
This is why fish, which is becoming more and more popular in the world, has always been a "supporting role" trapped in the south in China. The appearance of crispy tilapia may bring a touch of bright color to the national strategy of tilapia, but tilapia still has a long way to go to become a phenomenal fish species in China.