South Sea Exclusive

Product:

Our farm will produce one main product namely; Eco Lobster, live, 100% sustainable and exquisite taste. For the first 3 years young lobsters will be bought from fishermen. They will have an initial stocking weight of 50-100 grams. These juveniles will be transported and stocked at our facilities. Bamboo cages will be used for stocking and growing (8 juveniles per m3). Juveniles will be fed 4 times a day on a diet consisting of 70 percent fish (waste meat bought from fish processing plants) and 30 percent mussels (produced at our facilities, and also used as a biological filter. After one year they will reach optimum size (1 Kilo) and they will be sold.

Proposed markets:

The current market for both live and frozen spiny lobsters is stable with an increasing trend. Because of the growing economy in China, the demand for live spiny lobsters in the high-end restaurants keeps increasing, but the supplies does not cover the demand. At the moment this problem occurs in most Asian countries, mostly due to overexploitation and the lack of good fishery management.

With the rapidly growing Chinese economy and currently already 20 million millionaires living in the republic of China, this market can be truly seen as the sleeping giant regarding live seafood products.

Unique Selling Proposition for the Asian market is a mix of quality, low price and speed of delivery. After this initial launch we want to expand towards the European market by using a distribution centre in the Netherlands. The USP for the European market is the sustainable cultured lobster. There is a growing demand for sustainable bred seafood products in West-Europe; especially the richer customers who eat at the high-end restaurant are motivated in their choice of restaurant by this quality.

The competition is not very strongly developed in the Philippines. A government analysis shows us that demand is ten times larger then supply (10 tons compared to 100 tons). Vietnam shows a strong increase in farms the last years, making it the strongest competitor in the Southeast Asian region. Global production at the moment is 80.000 metric tons of which 20% is sold live.

SSE applies the business-to-business model, which leads to the use of two dominant marketing strategies for the first three years, i.e. using industry trade fair as focused marketing platform and industry magazines. After the first three years the Marketing & Sales department will be strengthened by several Asian marketing experts who are native speaker in Japanese and Chinese who will focus on direct customer acquisition.

My work as researcher in coastal zone management is based on the economic value of ecosystem functions of the province Palawan. My previous work as financial manager of a cultural centre in Wageningen, The Netherlands has provided me with a lot of hands on experience in financial management of a company. The company had a bad track record of 6 years of loss but my year was the first to finish with a substantial profit to turn the tide. This year showed a clear talent for successful interim management from my side.

In the proposed investment region there are at the moment few employment possibilities, with the implementation of our project we will create many job prospects. To achieve our development goals we will install a South Sea Exclusive Sustainability Fund which will be funded by 5% of the profits of the sales of our lobster production. The goals of this fund are threefold by focussing on social factors, environmental problems and by creating awareness amongst the local community. The strategy applied is to reinvest part of the money generated by the production of the lobsters back into the societal and ecological pillars of the system.