Ecuador producers swapping tilapia for shrimp

The production blow to Thailand’s shrimp farms from early mortality syndrome (EMS) this year has created a domino effect for Ecuadorian producers, with some switching production from tilapia to shrimp as a result.

The dearth in supply is pushing Chinese buyers to call Ecuador for product, said the Ecuadorian farmer Omarsa.

Buyers that had never bought from Omarsa before are now hunting the company down to get product.

“We get 8-10 requests for shrimp every day from new buyers [in China],” Sandro Coglitore, general manager for Ecuador-based shrimp supplier Omarsa, told Undercurrent News.

Not only is it easy to make sales, the price is extremely attractive. “Prices are going up all over the board,” he said. “It’s crazy. They just want all shrimp.”

Prices are up across the globe. For HSLO vannamei from Indonesia, prices are up at $6 per pound currently, a significant improvement from $4.95 last year at this time.

Omarsa’s businesses focuses on shrimp exclusively, but for those that do both shrimp and tilapia, the shrimp is beginning to look much more attractive.

Swapping tilapia for shrimp

Ecuadorean supplier Santa Priscila is converting 40% of its tilapia farms to shrimp farms this year due to increasing demand from both Asia and conventional markets.

Santa Priscila’s tilapia farms are part of polyculture sites, which are also used for shrimp, and the company has plans to begin converting 40% of those shared sites exclusively to shrimp, Santa Priscila’s Roberto Coronel Kronfle told Undercurrent.

The company produces mangos, shrimp and tilapia. Tilapia brings in 12% of the sales that shrimp does, but it will be less once the conversion happens.

Francisco Murillo, chief business development officer for Regal Springs, said this switch is happening in Ecuador since the start of the year.

Murillo said he knew of one producer that switched from farming entirely tilapia to entirely shrimp, and he predicts the shift will create a noticeable shortfall of tilapia in the US market this year.

There already is a shortfall when compared to last year. Tilapia exports from Ecuador to the US took a 13% dive during the first four months of the year, dropping to 2,741t compared to 3,152t last year

Even more noticeable is the overall shortage of tilapia imports to the US for the period. Imports of tilapia overall are down 11% in the first four months of the year, from 72,300 metric tons last year to 63,900t this year.

In contrast, overall imports in 2012 were up 18%, to 227,442t, including a 225t increase from Ecuador, to 8,381t.

Regal Springs is planning to more than make up for the shortfall in tilapia from Ecuador with its new plant in Mexico, which it just finished production on in February. The plant currently is producing at a rate that would equal 3,500t per year at the outset, but it has the capacity to produce 14,100t eventually, said Murillo.

US shrimp imports through April were down almost 9%. From Ecuador, the shortfall was 11.8% year to date, with Ecuador shipments to the US totaling 52.9 million lbs.