Value-added fish producer has zero waste

Bulacan-based Fisher Farms Inc., a company founded in 2001 to produce value-added tilapia and bangus products, does not produce any waste.

Oscar C. Diamaro, quality analyst for R&D, and sales supervisor in charge of the Zero Waste Program of Fisher Farms, said the heads which they cut off from the body of the fish are sold at "give away" prices to employees, their relatives and neighbors.

The tails, intestines and gills are either fed to hito (catfish) of the growers or become raw materials for the feeds line of Fisher Farms’ mother company, FeedMix Inc.

The skin is made into crispy chicharon, but a foreign buyer is looking into the possibility of turning tilapia leather into fashion products.

The scales have found a market from a South Korean company which intends to use this as ingredient in a pharmaceutical line. Alvin Gimelo, Fisher Farms general manager, said the Korean company in fact placed an order for three tons per month of tilapia scales for use in its pharmaceutical line. A piece of tilapia can produce only 0.3 percent of scales, Gimelo explained.

Fisher Farms itself only uses the meat to produce fillets and the value-added products that come in several selections namely: Oriental selection that includes siomai, spring rolls, siopao asado, smoked, marinated and skin chicharon; party selection that includes patties-fish sticks, popcorn, nuggets and croquettes; premium cut selection such as whole, gutless/scaleless whole, boneless, fillet and special cuts; breaded selection includes breaded cheese fillet, Italian crumbs; Japanese, Mexican and pizza crumbs; the breakfast selection namely corned fish, fish chorizo de Bilbao, chorizo de Ricado, fresh native sausage, fish hotdog, fish loaf, Ilocos longganiza and variants like garlic, sweetened and skinless longganiza and tocino and the Ready to Eat selection like milkfish adobo, fish curry and sisig.

By April 2005, Fisher Farms will start operating its state of the art 400 tons per month individual quick freeze (IQF), German-made smoke-house facility. Up to 80 percent of its output will be exported while the balance will go to local buyers that include fast food chains Jollibee and Chowking; supermarkets like SM, Rustans, Isetann and Big R and even the Mercury Drug-grocery chains that will soon be putting up fish chillers in all its outlets, Gimelo said.

With the full operation of the plant, the company is expected to increase its raw material requirements from growers and its own modular tanks to ensure steady supply of fish for the processing line, Gimelo said.

"With more raw fish, the supply of rejects or wastes such as intestines and gills, tails, heads and scales will multiply dramatically but this would not pose a problem for us since we have ready markets for them," Diamaro said.

He added that a local herbal food supplement manufacturer has in fact placed a huge order for fish tails to be used in enhancing the calcium content of its product. Fisher Farms’ plant will also be able to fill in the requirement of three tons a month of tilapia scales being ordered by the Korean pharmaceutical producer. "It takes 500 kilos of tilapia to produce a kilo of its scales," Diamaro explained.

The increased volume of gills and intestines and skeletons will be used to increase the production of feeds by our FeedMix plant, Diamaro said.