– I want to bring the Norwegian cod to China. The Singapore- based entrepreneur Mr. TK Lim (73) was crystal clear about his intentions visiting Norway the winter of 2013.
Assisted by Rita Westvik, Futurama, he travelled the coast of Norway and met entrepreneurs, innovators and producers in the Atlantic seafood industry.
He came to the district of Helgeland, where the Golf stream ends. There, he met the nine years older Mr. Per Remman. He have been innovating farming of cod, transportation and storage methods for live fish.
The two senior innovators, sharing the passion of aquaculture, continue to meet. In the autumn, Mr. Lim came back for new meetings in Norway. Mr. Lim and Mr. Remman came along very well. They even hugged.
Innovation and meetings
The Chinese ambassador to Norway participated in one meeting. Why the ambassador? Well, the fact is that Mr TK Lim sees the Chinese market for farmed, live cod as the main target. The Chinese consume around 15 kilos of seafood per capita – the highest seafood consumption in the world and rising.
– We can start cod farming within three months, said Mr. Lim at the Marine Innovation Day in Bergen, March 2013. Then searching for partners in Norway to start the venture
A consortium of companies are now working on the plans for big scale cod and salmon farming in the east. The Lim project is about to build an aquaculture farm in Hainan, close to Hongkong, with fertilized cod eggs from Norway.
AquaOptima is in dialogue with Lim about the cod farm. The company is a supplier of RAS (recirculation aquaculture systems) and has designed and supplied hatcheries and grow-out land-based farms worldwide for a variety of cold and warm water species. The company has special experience in farming of Atlantic Cod, Atlantic Salmon and Barramundi.
Several other companies have joined, as part of a group of solution providers, to meet the needs of the Lim project.
Increasing demand
VuAS has been breeding cod from cod larvae to cod for food the last ten years, at the location on the Norwegian coast. The company has been developing methods for temporary storing of live seafood for sale, transported in tanks to different companies for sale to customers.
1043 kilometers from the fish farm location at Vikholmen, a gourmet store in Oslo became a partner in testing the concept of transport and storing of the live cod. Both the store and customers are really happy with this new experience for the seafood industry.
– According to the good result of selling live fish, we already have plans for commercial management, Per Remman says.
Roar Sjåvåg, head of fresh food at the Oslo based gourmet store Jacobs på Holtet, describes the live fish project in this way: “It was a success!”
VuAS now plans to build four new containers at the gourmet store and increase the volume and sale of larger quantities and various species. Jacobs is eager to continue the innovation to meet the increasing demand for high end seafood from the Norwegian coast to the gourmet customers of the capital.
Transfer to China?
The Norwegian innovations are music in the ears to the Singapore-Indonesian aquaculture investor and innovator, TK Lim. Mr. Lim is also based in Shanghai, in the midst of the world’s fastest growing seafood market. In the late 1990’s Lim Tjoen Kong, born in Lampung, Sumatra, Indonesia, retired as head of his family business empire to devote himself fully for his aquaculture passion.
Already in the 1980s he initiated and obtained funding to build the world’s largest integrated shrimp farm stretching 120 square kilometers. The aquaculture activity is run by LIM Shrimp Organization and has built the world’s most advanced shrimp farm i China. The last years TK Lim has worked with scientists around the globe with his project “Aqua-Manufacturing” with the goal to multiply productivity and lower risk in traditional aquaculture.
The cooperation between Mr. Lim, Mr. Remman and the Norwegian consortium is a story about real global innovation and business opportunities.