Hong Kong garment firm diversifies into indoor fish farms
William Choi and his partners recently spent HK$80 million setting up the Santai Eco Fishery in Chashan. He hopes that the 24,000-square-metre indoor fish farm will capitalise on the steady stream of tainted food scandals on the mainland.
A Hong Kong garment boss in Dongguan is testing the water in a new line of business - fish farming.
William Choi and his partners recently spent HK$80 million setting up the Santai Eco Fishery in Chashan. He hopes that the 24,000-square-metre indoor fish farm will capitalise on the steady stream of tainted food scandals on the mainland.
Choi is the second generation of a family-owned garment trading business that once boasted annual sales of HK$1 billion. But industrial reform in the Pearl River Delta has rapidly pushed up wages and his clients in the US have cut orders, forcing Choi to rethink his options.
"Indoor fish farming is a growth business, which will be big enough in the future to cushion the ups and downs in our existing garment trading business," said Choi, founder and chairman of Santai.
The farm could emerge as a niche alternative to Hong Kong, which relies heavily on food imports from across the border. The mainland has been plagued by negative news of food scandals such as restaurants using recycled "gutter oil" and, most recently, rat and fox meat being passed off as lamb.
Choi said the farm, the first of its kind in southern China, raises mainly jade perch, a freshwater fish. He aims to supply Hong Kong with about 350 tonnes this year, selling the brownish black-finned fish to restaurants and supermarkets.