Tuesday 20th September 2022, Colombo: Taprobane Seafoods, Sri Lanka’s largest and most integrated seafood company opened its second Taprobane Aquaculture Service centre in Puttalam recently to enhance access for shrimp farmers and to promote sustainable farming practices while reducing chemical usage. The centre was inaugurated by the Chairman of Taprobane Seafoods Dilan Fernando in the presence of representatives from local government and customers. The new Taprobane Aqua Services centre is a one-stop-shop for all aquaculture products and services to drive a sustainable and eco-friendly shrimp sector through controlled intensification. Shrimp farmers can also avail themselves of equipment on lease or purchase for aquaculture through Taprobane’s partnership with UTE (Caterpillar).
By setting up yet another centre, the company connects directly with farmers, reducing middlemen and paying direct to farmers, thus ensuring good prices; working with the government on policies, regulations and infrastructure (for example, electrification, canal dredging and roads); helping older generation farmers move more quickly into utilizing new technology; shifting mindsets and onboarding farmers on to new production and platforms; working with the government to change the lingering sentiment that shrimp farming is bad; protecting our environment, and 100% transparency within our sector to ensure human rights are being protected.
Taprobane’s head of Technical services, Vijay Kallepalli held a workshop and communicated to the farmers best practices to ensure they are sustainable and profitable. Vijay is a 30-year veteran of the Aquaculture industry, has international experience, and is globally regarded as an expert in Sustainable Shrimp farming
The centre’s slogan is ‘No Antibiotics No Pestiside, all feed and fertilizer will not be harmful to the environment for best sustainability practices’. At the time of shrimp harvesting, farmers usually release the water with a high percentage of nitrogen to streams or into the lagoon which can increase algae and destroy the environment and change the bio diversity of the water. Thus, Taprobane Seafoods is educating and encouraging farmers to have Effluent Treatment Ponds to minimise nutrient mobilization by introducing the Recirculation Water System for resource water purification. As a result, the same water can be used for the crop.
The centre will also target electricity consumption by educating farmers on the usage of 10 gauge blowers instead of the usage of parallel wheel aerators, thus reducing electricity usage. Enhancing their sustainability agenda further, Taprobane Aquaculture Services is now online and cloud based, thus going totally paperless. In its sustainability drive, the company is working towards eradicating plastic usage with the promotion of cloth bags, and reducing (leading to eradicating) the usage of plastic cups or plates. All refuse including paper, plastic and food waste is recycled.
About Taprobane Seafoods
Taprobane Seafoods is the largest and most fully integrated seafood company in Sri Lanka. Established in 2010, the company has 17 processing facilities, 1,000 acres of Shrimp farms, hatcheries, retail outlets, and a feed & healthcare business and employs over 2,000 direct employees throughout the country. Its uniqueness stems from the fact that all the employees who work in the processing plants in the North are women, from the security guard to the supervisors and managers including war widows who are the breadwinners of their families. Taprobane Seafoods began its success story with the committed and visionary leadership of Timothy O’Reilly, Dilan Fernando and Sathya Rathnayake. Cheng Niruttinanon – Executive Chairman of Thai Union, also sits on the board of directors of Taprobane Seafoods. Thai Union is the largest seafood company, globally, and its subsidiary, Chicken of the Sea Frozen Foods, the largest importer of crab and shrimp into the US market. Taprobane has also been certified by FSSC 22000 food safety standard and HACCP risk management system.
Taprobane Seafoods is led by a vision to be the global leader in sustainable and socially responsible aquaculture based on high-quality standards, social responsibility, sustainability, integrity, and success. We are a proud member of the United Nations Global Compact and the only seafood company in the Sri Lanka network. The company produces premium quality seafood products for iconic brands such as Whole Foods USA, which requires complying with stringent quality and sourcing standards. Taprobane is also the leader and pioneer of pasteurized Blue Swimming Crab and SPF Vannamei Shrimp and is the driving force behind Sri Lanka’s first-ever eco-recommended fishery and Asia’s first-ever Blue Swimming Crab fishery in Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar. Taprobane was recently awarded the prestigious 4* status by Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP), the world’s leading certification authority in Aquaculture Practices.