VALUE-ADDED FISHERY PRODUCTS IN BANGLADESH

INTRODUCTION

There are several factors that explain the choice to add value to products. On one hand, producers and exporters aim at satisfying the increasing demand for value-added products from consumers, aided by demographic and economic changes. At the same time, governments of countries with fish resources wish that value addition takes place in their own countries rather that in the importing country as it is thought to benefit job creation and higher economic activity. International trade in fish and fishery products has grown substantially over the last decades. Today, more than 30 percent of the fish caught for direct human consumption enters international trade. Developing countries account for approximately 50 percent of global fish exports (FAO, 2005). However, many countries, especially developing countries, export mainly raw products and only limited quantities of processed products. The former are in turn processed in industrialized countries. By so doing, these exporting countries are not extracting full benefits from their aquatic resources. Consequently, more and more development experts and institutions are advocating the transfer of value addition technologies, know-how and investment capital to these developing countries. This is also attractive in view of the fact that value addition processes generate further employment and hard currency earnings. However, despite the availability of technology, many projects in value-adding for export collapsed. Careful consideration was not given to the various facets of their feasibility, including quality assurance, marketing, distribution and trade barriers, before embarking on a value-adding fish process. In developed countries, value-added innovation is mainly focused on increased convenience foods and a wider variety of high value-added products, mainly in fresh, frozen, breaded, smoked or canned form. These necessitate sophisticated production equipment and methods and, hence, access to capital. The resulting fish products are commercialized as ready and/or portion-controlled, uniform-quality meals.

FACTORS IN VALUE-ADDING

However, a number of factors make the strategy of value-addition quite complex and not at all clear-cut. On one hand, value-added products generally face higher import duties than unprocessed products or raw material. At the same time, value addition frequently involves large investments in buildings and equipment. This not only decreases flexibility and increases vulnerability in situations with uncertain supplies of raw material, which often is the case for many fish stocks, but also channels large amounts of scarce economic resources into fixed capacity. In addition, production, sales and distribution of value added products often require large economic resources for marketing and promotion, which smaller companies usually do not possess.

IMPORTANCE OF VALUE ADDITION

With the rapidly expanding world population and limited size of the food resources, it is becoming increasingly important that all harvested/captured fish and shrimp resources be fully utilized especially for human consumption. It is estimated that more then 500,000 MT of shrimp fishing by catch are wasted each year in global fishery when they are thrown back into the sea (Hasan, 2007). Similar quantities of presently unmarketable and unpopular fish are also wasted in other areas. Considerable quantities of fish offal and wastes are either completely wasted or turned into animal feeds or fertilizers. These products have a less significant effect on human nutrition than they would if used directly for human consumption. The search for new products to make proper use of the otherwise wasted fish is a continuing one. The products must be acceptable to a consumer willing to pay the price of the processing involved in their production. Presently the most active field for research and development is the use of
fish mince, cephalopods, low cost small prawns, discarded shrimps etc. In Bangladesh over 14700 MT of cat fish (Tachyurs spp), 5000 MT of Sharks, Skates and rays and 122800 MT of unpopular low cost fish are under utilized and about half of the total Shrimp production are small and wild shrimp catches (Hasan, 2007). It is estimated that over 50000 MT of small and mixed sea fishes are discarded and thrown overboard by the trawlers fleet of Bangladesh (Hasan, 2007). All these offer a golden opportunity for production of value added products (VAPs). Besides over 4730000 MT of other fresh water fish are available for local marketing. A good quantity of these may be used for VAPs (Hasan, 2007).

Developing value added fishery products in Bangladesh needs urgent attention of the Government. The processing industry and the quality control agencies. It is vital in respect of export as well as local marketing. More foreign exchange can be earned through exporting value added products in place of traditional fish and shrimp products. On the other hand less popular low cost under-utilized fish, small shrimps etc can be made popular and acceptable to the urban well to do class through value addition. This will help to increase better utilization of the otherwise neglected fishery resources and thereby enhance per capita annual fish consumption in which we are very much lagging behind. In order to do so, low cost unpopular fish may be used for production of cheaper value added products for local market and low income group people. On the other hand high value products from quality fish may be produced for affluent people and export market. To implement this program untapped fishery resources in and around Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) has to be fully exploited.

The economic viability if value added processing will depended on adequate resources and their  exploitation for the supply of quality raw materials, technology development, trained labor, management skills, availability of essentials inputs to operate the plants, products acceptability to the consumers, volume of supply, price realization, and access to affluent markets. The overseas markets in developed countries offer attractive prices for quality products processed in value added form. The world sea food market is expanding very fast. Because for health attributes. The untapped domestic market also offers big scope for selling value added products from low value fish. Therefore, it is very essential that processing of value added products from the existing raw materials and new sources of raw material from untapped fishery resources with in and beyond EEZ be undertaken by setting up necessary facilities. Bangladesh is already lagging behind in this field as compared to neighboring Asian countries. Necessary thrust has to be exerted on exploitation and processing ore and more white fish mainly pelagic, shell fish other crustacean instead of banking on shrimps only in order to improve the under utilized capacity of the existing processing plants of Bangladesh.

Justification for Processing Value Added Products for Export

Among all food items sea food is one of the few commodities which can be processed into value added products in the exporting countries because of the following reasons:

• Freshness of the product can be retained since reprocessing avoided.
  
• Demand for sea food far exceeds supply and retailers look for quality products with continuous and reliable supply from anywhere in the world.
  
• Production cost is comparatively lower in developing countries and consumers can get better products at a cheaper price.
  
• Exporting countries can have gainful employment and brand image.
  

Therefore, there is full justification for the developing countries to avail this golden opportunity by exporting their products in value added forms.

Domestic Market Potentials

The domestic market for value added fish and shrimp is now in a take off stage since there are more than half a million foreign nationals residing in Bangladesh. Besides, due to development activities of Government, private sector and NGOs (both national and international) the country has made some economic progress, thus already creating a strong rich class and upper middle class where value added products can have good demand. Therefore opportunity exists for:

• Canned fish – Hilsha, Skip Jack, Tuna etc for hotel chains, expatriates, tourists. rich and upper middle class of cities/towns etc.
  
• Smoked fish for hotel chains, expatriates, tourists and rich class.
  
• Ready to cook retail pack of fish and shrimp of different types.
  
• White fish in the form of fish fillet, dressed fish, stake, mince and mince products like fish burger, fingers, balls etc. to be marketed in retail packs.
  
• Salted and dehydrated fishes in retail packs.
  
• Initial marketing should start in Dhaka and Chittagong cities.
  
• Gradual marketing in divisional and district cities /towns in retail packs.
  

Strategies for Development

The following strategies may be followed for VAPs:

• Existing plans to be modernized for VAPs as per international requirement.
  
• Maximum utilization of existing plants capacities to be ensured by introducing VAPs
  
• Ways and means to be evolved for collection and transportation of discarded fish to shore processing plants.
  
• Un-exploited and untapped fisheries resources to be identified and exploited
  
• Setup research and development centers for VAPs
  
• Setup a parastatal body for the sea food industry
  
• Setup international market research and information dissemination centre
  
• Setup a training institute by the industry itself where training on VAPs and product diversification will be imparted on  cost basis
  
• Intensive participation in   international sea food fairs
  
• Arrange locally food fairs to popularize new products
  
• Arrange quick technology transfer through joint venture projects with developed countries
  

VALUE-ADDED FISHERY PRODUCTS

Value addition is any activity along the supply chain that increases the usability, culinary attribute or economic viability of a seafood item. value added fish products are usually perceived to be those that have added ingredients such as a coating or a sauce, are prepared trimmed or in same way provide more convenience to the user. Actually it indicates a measure of factors added to the total worth of a product at each stage of the production. Value addition ties in with consumer convenience. Value addition is a process for transforming fish fillets into products that are perceived by the customer as having added quality and interest. Before embarking on a value-adding fish process some special considerations should be given on the following points:

Quality assurance

Improving fish utilization and value requires proper quality assurance. Present societal changes have led to the development of outdoor catering, convenience products and food services and require fish products ready to eat or requiring little preparation before serving. However, these products require stringent quality and safety assurance programs throughout the processing and distribution chain. Any shortcoming can have disastrous health and economical consequences, especially those most value-added products will not be cooked or subjected to a treatment before consumption.

Marketing and distribution

In many developed countries, most consumers limit their food shopping to one day per week, mostly for shelf stable, convenience and ready to eat foods. These value added fish products are marketed in big food chains and department stores. Unknown brands of new value added products will have difficulty accessing the shelves of these outlets without substantial investment in marketing and publicity to disseminate the brand image of the product. This is not within the capabilities of many developing countries where the fish exporting industry is fragmented and trade associations and support institutions are not well organized. Presently, most developing countries process value-added products packed under the label of the importer that has a known brand and distribution channels. But, many of these countries are discovering that this market access procedure is very costly.

Trade barriers

Exports of fishery products are still subject to many trade barriers. Tariffs play important roles in strategic business decisions on whether to export unprocessed fish products, which normally have zero tariffs in the importing country, or finished (consumer ready) processed/semi-processed products, which are burdened with prohibitive tariffs. To gain control over revenue, exporting firms need to gain command of significant parts of the value chain for their products, especially the latter stages where significant proportions of the total value-adding occurs. However, moving downstream in the value chain, requires acquiring general and specific knowledge about how and where in the value chain revenues accumulate and values are added. A cost/benefit analysis should be conducted, embracing both macro-economic and micro-economic aspects.

Table 1. Types of Value Added Fish Products in High Demand Abroad

A. Shrimp Based (Crustacean)

B. Fish Mince (Surimi) based ready to Cook Products

C. Whole Fish

Surimi

An example of value addition is the production of surimi and surimi-based products. Surimi is a mechanically deboned, washed (bleached) and stabilised fish flesh. It is an intermediate product used in the preparation of a variety of ready to eat seafood such as Kamaboko, fish sausage, crab legs and imitation shrimp products. Surimi-based products are gaining more prominence worldwide, because of the emergence of Japanese restaurants and culinary traditions in North America, Europe and elsewhere. Ideally, surimi should be made from low-value, white-fleshed fish with excellent gelling ability and which are abundant and available year-round. At present, Alaskan pollack accounts for a large proportion of the surimi supply. Other species, such as sardine, mackerel, barracuda, striped mullet have been successfully used for surimi production.

Fishmeal and fish oil

Also, a significant proportion of the world catch (20 percent) is still processed into fishmeal and fish oil. Fishmeal is a ground solid product that is obtained by removing most of the water and some or all of the oil from fish or fish waste. This industry was launched in the 19th century, based mainly on surplus catches of herring from seasonal coastal fisheries to produce oil for industrial uses in leather tanning and in the production of soap, glycerol and other non-food products. Presently, it uses small oily fish to produce fishmeal and oil. It is worthy to mention that, only where it is uneconomic or impracticable for human consumption, should the catch be reduced to fishmeal and oil. Indeed, cycling fish through poultry or pigs is a loss because there is a need for 3 kg of edible fish to produce approximately 1 kg of edible chicken or pork.

CONCLUSION

Value added production is just one of many possible strategies that must be considered by a company or by a policymaker. Alternative uses of the relevant economic resources must be evaluated in order to arrive at the optimal long-run strategy. Fishery products play a very important role in the economy of our country, so, we must have the proper idea about value-added fishery products.

REFERENCES

FAO, 2005. Issues Fact Sheets. Food utilization and value-adding. Issues Fact Sheets. Text by Lahsen Ababouch. In: FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department. Rome. Updated 27 May 2005.

Hasan K. R., 2007. Developing Value Added Fishery Products in Bangladesh. Online Document. Url: http://www.bqsp.org/newsletter%205_5.php.

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