In the past few years, the tilapia farming industry in southern my country has been really worried about developing the domestic market. Many methods have been tried, but there has been no significant improvement.

In order to promote the "Southern Fish Travel to the North", the year before last, Hainan, a major breeding province, launched the "Hainan Sea Bream" promotion plan. Guangdong, also a major breeding province, started five or six years ago. The cultivation of "crisp tilapia" is seeking breakthroughs in domestic sales.

Nowadays, crispy meat tilapia, the "new hope" of southern tilapia, has gradually surfaced, but I don't know whether this "new fish species" with Internet celebrity potential can become a tilapia. The domestic sales of non-fish products has brought new variables.

Also an exotic species, tilapia does not have the luck of crayfish and bullfrog to become a national food. Although farmed tilapia in the southern region has already firmly occupied the sixth position in my country's aquaculture production rankings.

Also, it has a considerable market share in international markets such as the United States very early, but the domestic consumer market is still limited to Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan and other breeding areas. Tilapia in southern my country The breeding industry has been stuck at a "bottleneck" for many years.

Although the global demand for tilapia will continue to grow, for my country’s tilapia farming industry, water cannot quench the thirst.

The largest overseas market, the United States, has been greatly impacted by the Sino-US trade war. However, it has been difficult to develop other overseas markets due to fierce competition and trade barriers. As a result, it has been forced to develop the domestic market.

Idiots don’t want to develop the domestic market, but after so many years, in addition to the fact that domestic consumption has greatly exceeded the export volume, the southern tilapia is probably struggling to reach the Yangtze River, but it wants to cross the river. But leaving, there is still no hope.

At the end of the last century and the beginning of this century, a way to earn foreign exchange through export saved the southern tilapia breeding industry that was just starting at that time. However, as tilapia production continued to increase, the export market began to become "saturated" and the domestic market expanded. The slowness has kept the price of tilapia at a low level, and the domestic tilapia farming industry has been in "internal friction". Finding a breakthrough in domestic sales has become the only way for the southern tilapia farming industry to achieve self-rescue. .

From crispy grass carp to crispy tilapia

Cantonese people who are good at eating and tossing use broad beans as feed to raise the famous crispy grass carp, which is famous for its crispy meat. , the price is much higher than that of ordinary grass carp, and the economic benefits are obvious.

Seeing the success of crispy fish, some clever farmers tried to transplant this method to tilapia, hoping to copy a similar path, but they encountered many obstacles.

Although tilapia is also an omnivorous fish, fermented broad beans can also be used as feed, but because the intestinal wall of tilapia is relatively thin, the digestive system is much more fragile than grass carp. In the early stages of trying, Farmers encountered a serious problem: after feeding tilapia with broad bean feed for 30 days, a large number of fish died.

Because of this problem, most of the farmers who tried ended in failure, but there are still some farmers who did not give up. They started by adjusting the feed formula and continued to tackle the problem of fragile tilapia farming.

Finally, between 2018 and 2019, some farmers gradually mastered the tilapia farming technology by constantly adjusting the feed formula, and controlled the loss rate of tilapia below 5%. The large-scale commercial breeding of Crispy Fei has cleared the way.

Restaurants consume 20,000 kilograms per day

After more than five years of development, with Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Maoming in Guangdong as the main breeding bases, the crispy breeding industry has begun to take shape , even Hainan has begun to make plans, because the characteristics of crispy meat have given Tilapia, which was originally mediocre and even had a somewhat negative reputation, a new selling point.

Due to the freshwater fish market in the first half of this year, the price of crispy pork grass has soared, which has made many restaurants specializing in crispy pork grass in South China miserable. A sharp price increase will severely dampen the desire of diners to enter the store. How about making signature dishes? The plight of these restaurants has provided Crispy with an excellent opportunity to rise to the top.

Take the market situation in the Pearl River Delta region of South China in early September as an example. The price of crispy pork carp weighing more than 14 kilograms per tail is about 16 yuan per kilogram, and the price of fresh and crispy pond carp weighing more than 3.5 kilograms per tail is about 16 yuan per kilogram. The first price is 10.5~10.8 yuan/jin, which is a price advantage.

Coupled with the "crispy meat" properties, many restaurants have tried to use crispy meat instead of crispy meat.

Because in addition to the crispy meat, the crispy meat has no intramuscular thorns and also has the umami flavor of fish, which quickly won the favor of diners.

According to estimates by industry insiders, the current daily consumption of fresh crispy snacks in restaurants in South China is around 20,000

jin. There is already a certain market size, but the problem is that fresh crispy snacks are Crispy Fei and Crispy Pork are following the same route, and their limitations are naturally very obvious. Crispy meat fish has been around for so many years, but the main consumer market is still in South China. No matter how unique the crispy meat fish is, it is impossible to break through the market restrictions of this "crispy meat fish". Therefore, for Jianfei, if he wants to take the national route, he has to change his mind.

Hot pot, skewers and prepared dishes

It is really difficult to find the reason why tilapia is not acclimatized in our country, because now the southern region produces high-quality fish. Quality tilapia is basically a "perfect" freshwater fish: no intermuscular spines, low fat and high protein, and no muddy smell.

Speaking of the muddy smell, many people complain that tilapia is a "stinky fish" with a strong fishy smell. In fact, the fishy smell of tilapia is mainly affected by water quality.

Due to high-density earth pond culture and turbid water quality, tilapia has a very obvious muddy smell due to certain algae, but this is not irreversible. Nowadays, the common practice in the tilapia farming industry is to use water pumping to solve the problem of muddy smell.

Before the tilapia comes out of the pond, it should be stocked in a low-density clear water pond for about a month, and only a small amount of feed should be fed. It can "reduce fat and slim down" the fish and enhance its taste.

In general, the quality of the tilapia itself is excellent, but neither the fresh fish nor the fish fillets for catering have been able to develop in the national market, which is very embarrassing.

Especially in the catering market, with Sichuan dishes such as pickled fish and boiled fish becoming popular, tilapia fillets have always been at a disadvantage in the competition with local snakeheaded fish and imported pangasius. Of course, this There is also a very important reason for this, because tilapia meat is relatively tender and easily broken into pieces when cooked, and the current crispy fish just makes up for this shortcoming.

Kuifei can be cooked for 50 minutes without falling apart, which is very suitable for the development of various fish fillet dishes. Naturally, some large aquatic product processing companies in Guangdong have seen the development prospects of Jufei in this area. Start laying out business in this area.

One direction is naturally the catering industry. Due to the epidemic, Vietnam’s pangasius imports have been blocked, coupled with the rising prices of freshwater fish such as grass carp and black fish, giving Crispy Fei a very good development space, if used properly , maybe it can open up a whole new situation.

The other direction is the retail market. Because tilapia has little popularity outside of southern China, of course a large part of the reason is that tilapia has a bad reputation among the people, which has led to many dealers not being interested in tilapia as soon as the new crispy fish comes out.

Some manufacturers have also learned from Hainan’s practice of renaming tilapia. Some have named pre-made tilapia fillets Jade Snapper Fillets. If the retail market can accept it, they can create an internet-famous fish. , that would also be a good breakthrough point.

Tilapia has been in China for a long time, 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 distinguish from it. Four traditional fish species such as kingfish and snakehead fish stand out.

This is why, although it is a fish that is becoming increasingly popular internationally, it has always been a "supporting role" trapped in the south in our country. The emergence of crispy meat tilapia may give tilapia The national strategy of tilapia has brought a bright light, but tilapia still has a long way to go before it can become a phenomenal fish species in China.