The Department of Fisheries held a ceremony to sign the 3rd memorandum of agreement for the trade of Sea bass
On 18 April 2019, the Department of Fisheries held a ceremony to sign the 3rd memorandum of agreement for the trade of Sea bass between Thai Airways International Public Company Limited, Thai Marine Finfish Farmers Association, and Thai Union Group PCL. This is the success of the large-scale agricultural promotion system by applying the principle of market leading production to supply Sea bass to the Thai Airways’ Catering Department continuously and expand the Sea bass culture to other farmers in order to meet the needs of consumers.
Mr. Adisorn Promthep, Director-General of the Department of Fisheries, gave an interview that "Asian sea bass" is one of the economic aquatic species that the Department of Fisheries encourages farmers to gather together and participate in large-scale agricultural promotion system according to the policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives in order to strengthen occupations, reduce costs, increase productivity, and upgrade agricultural products to standards, including increasing the ability to compete in the premium market. At present, the group of Asia sea bass farmers in Chachoengsao province under the Thai Marine Finfish Farmers Association, is regarded as a prototype of the grouping in accordance with the large-scale agricultural promotion system project that has achieved great success by being able to open the market channel as the first fishery product to be supplied to the Catering Department of Thai Airways Company Public Company Limited. Since 2016 to the present, there are orders for frozen Sea bass to be used as a raw material for cooking for Thai Airways passengers for more than 523 tons, which is regarded as the application of the marketing leading production approach with tangible results. With quality products that are of good quality, fresh, clean and safe, with Good Aquaculture Certification (GAP), being in compliance with the Good Labor Practices (GLP), including the feed used for raising the fishes comes from legal fishery raw materials with traceability processes throughout the production line, the consumers are confident in the products.
Recently, the Thai Marine Finfish Farmers Association and Thai Airways International Public Company Limited have entered into a memorandum of agreement for the trading of Sea bass in order to feed the produce into the Thai Airways’ Catering Department to continuously support the needs of consumers of the airline. In addition, the association also entered into a memorandum of agreement for the production and processing of Asian sea bass with Thai Union Group Public Company Limited in order to allow the processing and freezing of raw materials to maintain good quality before being used in various food menus for serving passengers on the airline. This memorandum of agreement is the 3rd one already.
The Department of Fisheries is ready to provide support to farmers in other areas to have potential for expanding the Asia sea bass production base in response to the growing consumer demand as well as will push other economic aquatic animal products to be supplied to the Thai Airways International Public Company Limited in the future.
Mrs. Warangkana Luerotewong, Managing Director of Catering Department, Thai Airways International Public Company Limited, revealed that since May 2016, Thai Airways has ordered sea bass from a group of farmers in Chachoengsao province, where the Company has received good quality raw materials in accordance with the standards of the Department of Fisheries and Thai Airways’ Catering Department and has always received good responses from clients. By the signing of this memorandum of agreement, Thai Airways is pleased to support sea bass from the culture of farmers in the Thai Marine Finfish Farmers Association in the project "From the water to the sky" to the Thai Airways’ catering for the 3rd time continuously for 3 years (2019 - 2022). Thai Airways’ catering needs to use sea bass as a raw material for excellent menus approximately 50 tons per year by creating popular menus to be served to and impress the passengers around the world, such as Fried Seabass with Red Curry Paste, Fried Seabass with Sauce, Steamed Seabass, etc. Such support will help promote the marketing channel and production potential of fishery products of Thai marine fish farmers to the international level. Thai Airways, as a national airline, conducts business in parallel with activities focusing on creating value and benefits for the public in accordance with social and environmental responsibility policies. In the past, Thai Airways has a project to help Thai farmers in a variety of means by ordering agricultural products and agricultural processed products from all regions of Thailand such as winter vegetables of the Royal Project, agricultural products of farmers in the southern border provinces, agricultural processed products from Doi Kham, highly safe agricultural products (fruit and vegetable number 8) of Chachoengsao province, to provide passenger services on board, as well as supporting the distribution of OTOP products onboard as well. The signing of this memorandum of agreement also raises the standards of Thai products and services by Thais with food from quality and non-toxic raw materials in accordance with the main mission of the Thai Airways service with the charm of being Thailand on international standards to deliver the best premium service throughout the journey.
Thai Union Feedmill Company Limited is proud to be a part of the success of this cooperation agreement as well. The reason is because Thai Airways International Public Company Limited has an intention to get the seabass pieces that are produced from the Thai seabass farmers that are traceable, namely, who is the Thai farmer who produce this product? Is the farm certified by GAP standard of the Department of Fisheries? which area fish were raised? What kind of feed is used for raising seabass? and that feed must be traceable for raw materials used on what date is it produced? Therefore, the farmers who produce seabass, as members of the Thai Marine Finfish Farmers Association, popularly use seabass feed from Thai Union Feedmill Co., Ltd. because they are confident in the quality and the traceability system of every batch of feed. This is another pride of us to be a part of the successful cooperation agreement between Thai Airways International Public Company Limited and the Thai Marine Finfish Farmers Association.
Source : https://www4.fisheries.go.th/index.php/dof/activity_item/3311, https://www4.fisheries.go.th/index.php/dof/activity_item/3310
