Seafood business in the deep freeze

Its two IQF spiral freezers are still in working order, but it has been years since any peeled shrimp made their way down the steel-mesh conveyor belts at the former Nautisco Seafood factory in Sihanoukville’s Steung Hav district. The 3,600 square-metre shrimp processing plant began operations in 2009, with capacity for 10 tonnes of shrimp a day, and shuttered its operations just two years later.

Various reasons have been given for the company’s demise – from poor supply chain management to endemic nepotism in its procurement department, to allegations its chief financial backer deliberately sank the company to boost the prospects of its upstart rival. Nautisco’s closure, however, was the swansong of a sector that once, briefly, seemed poised for explosive growth.

Nen Chamroeurn, head of Preah Sihanouk’s provincial fisheries administration, said the mothballing of three modern seafood factories in Sihanoukville – namely Nautisco, Ocean King and Chenla – marked the end of Cambodia’s brief experiment in developing an export-oriented frozen seafood industry. He said the factories were continually dogged by supply-side issues that prevented them from scaling up operations and turning a profit.

read more: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-weekend/seafood-business-deep-freeze