Sunday, February 19, 2017

20/02/2017: A seafood treat at the mouth of Love River - Taiwan’s Seafood and Fisheries Show

The TFSS 2016 took place in Kaohsiung’s Conference and Exposition Centre in southern Taiwan on November 9-11, 2016

Over 212 companies were on the exhibition floor and represented among the 401 booths in this most modern of exhibition buildings right at the centre of this massive port city of Kaohsiung.

Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and is noted for its tall high-rise buildings, particularly the 248m-tall Tuntex Sky Tower as well as its diversity of parks.
 


The Exhibition hall makes a significant impact on the city’s skyline in the port area where the Love River meets the sea and the island of Qijin acts as a natural breakwater.

This Taiwan International Fisheries and Seafood Show, to give it its full name, offers that unique experience of being commercial yet in a relaxed consumer or tourist environment: providing the latest in technology yet offering a low-key retail-like experience; providing information on every type of fish species bred or caught for food production while sampling different foods from these two industries cooked and served on the spot.

To break up this over-indulgence in the taste, there was a complete fanfare of fishing equipment to discover- from fish production and harvesting, through to processing and retail - there were specialised breakout conferences.

It was into this expo environment that International Aquafeed entered Kaohsiung for the second time in little over a year.

The theme of the show was ‘Green Fishery and Resource Sustainability,’ which aimed at building awareness of sustainability for an industry that is quickly exploring potential solutions to the challenges that hold back fish production - from both the capture and fish farming industries – and to meet growing consumer demand for traceable, high-quality and safe fish products.

“I feel the show is happening and everyone is speaking about our critical success,” says Irene Liu the general manager of MyExhibition one of the joint partners with Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA).

“The global demand for fish is growing and we see the proof of this at our show. This is only our second time but the achievement in the number of exhibitors is higher than expected and even on the second day we have reached our overall target for visitors,” she says.

“We actually targeted 6500 professional buyers, not just local but from overseas as well. By the second day we had achieved that number. For the exhibitors we have achieved a greater number of national governments exhibiting – 16 in total. And this year we welcomed visitors from 56 countries,” she adds.

With 401 exhibitors, the show had achieved a 10 percent increase over 2015.

“Given the undercurrent of the economy, this is a great achievement not just for us as the exhibition company but one which we have built for our customers.”

“Amazingly, the number of international exhibitors exceeded 100 and doubled last year’s total of 56. They have come from 21 countries,” says Ms Liu.

The top nine visiting countries were Japan, Vietnam, China, Thailand, Hong Kong, Philippines, Singapore, United States and Indonesia.

A unique exhibition
The event offered one-to-one meetings which assisted elite buyers to meet with exhibitors and more than 122 sessions took.

The 2016 Taiwan Aquaculture Industry Trends seminar presented not only International Aquafeed addressing world aquaculture, but also research professor Dr Yang Huey-Lang of the National Cheng Kung University on ‘Sustainable grouper farming’, which identified bottlenecks in production and key new developments for overcoming them.

Look out for International Aquafeed’s March edition, which will feature an article written by Dr Yang Huey-Lang on this topic.

Also on the program was Ms Shirlene Maria Anthonysamy, acting director of INFOFISH who reviewed Trend in Seafood Markets in Asia.

All three presentations proved to be highlights of the event. It was also a privilege for me to present upon ‘The state of world aquaculture’ including the latest developments in nutrition and advances in fish farming technology.

The uniqueness of this exhibition is that it combines all aspects of seafood production, processing and retail. Not only does it cater for those interested in fishery equipment and technology but also those working in all sectors of aquaculture.

It caters for those companies adding value to seafood as well as processes, fishery services and marine biotechnology.

Importantly, in Taiwan the government is deeply involved in fishing to ensure quality regulations are in place and followed, whilst unsafe practices and harmful handling and processing is eliminated.

Local government and academia are well represented and well worth visiting, the National Taiwan Ocean University being one organisation of note.

Another company of note was Idah, the Taiwanese feed equipment manufacturer that produces extruders for fish feed production systems, plus all the ancillary equipment needed in a fish feed plant.

In fact, the company discussed its planned development of a teaching program in 2017 to meet the demand for higher quality feeds.

The Grobest Group which is a leading shrimp feed brand that commands over eight percent of the global market for shrimp feeds, showcased its quality white and grass shrimp bred with its own feeds which featured physiological regulators that allow shrimp to grow more healthily and sustain a brighter colour, symmetric body and high palatability.

Check out our feature article on this in this edition! While devoted to supplying quality shrimp, traceable from the farm to the dining table, Grobest also offers customised services ranging from product design and development to logistics management.

This approach has allowed the company to become a long-term supply partner for the top 10 retail groups and catering companies in the USA and Europe.

The Ousei Taiwan Group displayed its non-bubble gas dissolved water system. It’s dedicated to helping aquaculture farmers upgrade their farming environments and presented its newly-developed Oxygen Fighter.

This unit can supply different levels of oxygen to fit the different needs of aquatic products and provide them with an environment for sustainable growth.

The company also offers a series of advanced products to help tackle hazardous substances commonly seen in aqua farming operations.

The firm is also working towards setting up an ecological aquatic alliance to establish standardised ecological aquaculture farming systems for affiliated members and customers.


Read the full article HERE.

The Aquaculturists
This blog is maintained by The Aquaculturists staff and is supported by the
magazine International Aquafeed which is published by
Perendale Publishers Ltd

For additional daily news from aquaculture around the world: aquaculture-news

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