FIRST LOAD: The inaugural load of 'super sea bass', which arrived at Jurong Fishery Port yesterday.
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JURONG Fishery Port was abuzz with activity yesterday as Singapore's first half-tonne shipment of 'super sea bass' arrived from Indonesia.
Hatched in the research tanks of the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority's (AVA) Marine Aquaculture Centre (MAC) on St John's Island, the fast-growing fry were fattened for harvest on an offshore farm in Riau.
With a survival rate of up to 80 per cent, MAC's fry are twice as hardy as wild fry, and able to grow up to 15 per cent faster, reaching market size - about 500g - in under six months.
Yesterday's inaugural load is the first of many, said the AVA, as the successful harvest will help boost the Republic's future fish stocks - translating into a sustainable and affordable supply of quality fish.
The entire shipment of live sea bass was snapped up even before the fish was netted out of the sea - at a wholesale price of about $7 per kg, comparable to current market prices, said the AVA.
Supply of high-quality fresh fish has sometimes been unable to meet demand because, as MAC head Lim Huan Sein explained, 'limited supply of good-quality fry is often a bottleneck when it comes to large-scale fish farming.'
Mr Eric Tan, managing director of seafood company Marine Harvest, which operates the farm, added that poor fry survival rates often drive the costs of farming up, which in turn have a snowball effect on prices paid by suppliers and customers.
To help widen the supply net, 400,000 of the specially bred fry have been supplied to the Riau farm since last year. The farm is expected to produce up to 100 tonnes of fresh fish monthly, for the next two years - or close to 7 per cent of all sea bass eaten here.
At the same time, another 400,000 fry have been supplied to fish farms here, which have been already selling the adult sea bass to the local market over the past six months.
A large-scale marine farm in southern Singapore is also expected by the end of this year, with a projected production capacity of up to 3,000 tonnes of fish annually by next year.
Together, the farms will produce about 6 per cent of the fresh fish consumed here yearly, creating another stable supply of food for the Republic, said Mr Lim.
Singaporeans consume about 72,000 tonnes of fresh fish a year, with most coming from farms in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, said the AVA.
The special sea bass fry were produced through a 'painstaking process of selective breeding', said Mr Lim.
Generations of the fish were bred and selected for desirable qualities, including size, growth and survival rates - a process which took three years, he explained.
This is the first time that fish from the four-year-old research centre has been produced and sold on a commercial scale.
Previous projects which have yet to achieve large-scale production include a 2004 pilot effort involving golden pomfret, which are reared here in deep-net cages, allowing for more fish to be stocked than traditional shallow coastal cages.
The new sea bass have proven to be a hit with restaurants here, and plans are under way to boost production of MAC's super fry.
And with the success of the sea bass project, researchers at MAC are turning their attention to other popular fish species, including red snapper and cobia.
Looking at the wriggling sea bass, some weighing up to 3kg, Mr Lim said: 'It's a proud moment.'
taniat@sph.com.sg
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