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04

09月

Wild Salmon Country- Kamchatka Salmon Harvest Season Report

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By Rock Fu


2018 is a big year for Russian pink salmon harvesting. The total harvest volume has passed 400,000 tons, especially in Kamchatka area, the harvest volume has passed 350,000 tons which breaks the record of the recent 110 years. Although the harvest season is about to end, but Rich Group’s purchase team is still active along the coastline. From beginning of the season, our purchase team enters the wild nature of the west Kamchatka where salmon’s habitant lays. The team visits factories along the coast choosing great-quality material that suits our production plan with their trustworthy profession of salmon inspection. This is their report about the Russian Pink Salmon as of 2018 harvest season. 

 
Products: H/G, head and gutted, whole rounds are the most common pink products. The great harvest volume uncovers the lack of local factories’ frozen storage capability. Thus, to shorter the manufacturing procedure timeline, local factories produced more head & gutted and whole round materials. According to official data, so far 130,000 tons of H/G product and 18-20 head& gutted and whole round product has been produced. 
 
Processing and Frozen Storage: salmon is commonly processed in land-based factories obtaining catching quota. There are approximately 100 land-based factories locating in Kamchatka area that 30s in the western and 60s in the eastern. Their capacity is limited therefore will hire motherships to help the harvest fleets. The motherships only process and store fish but harvesting directly. 
 

Grading: Russian pink products are often ocean run without grading. Though, the quality is always graded into the First Great or the Second Great. Moreover, the Second Great contains broken fish, dark fish and stale fish. This kind of grading procedure is only happening in the land-based factories but the motherships. Because management, storing capacity, equipment, transportation and harvest method vary in different factories, the qualities also vary. Fact is that there is no such commonly approved grading guide in Russia salmon industry, thus, some First Great is worse than Second Grade from another factory. 

From the beginning of the season, purchase team from our Russian office has entered western Kamchatka to inspect factories. With their presence, we now have a more solid understanding about the Russian material. 


Pink salmon are transport from ports to factories by heavy trucks.


Due to the off-road condition, fish are scattered along the road.  


Factories are motivated to maximize their profits during the busy season, but their capacity can’t process all the materials therefore tons of fish await further procedure in room temperature. This is the major cause of quality risk and problem.

Thanks to our purchase team’s effort, we now found the qualified material for our factory’s standard as below:




The above is the First Grade, the meat color is 13+ and higher meat texture is firmed, more elasticity, no blood spot, no soft meat, no jelly meat, good size.


Above is the Second Grade, which has broken meat texture. The flesh is soft and rotten.

Tones of soft and jelly fish which won’t get processed timely.

rotten fish are common.

Above is the Russian material condition, because of the great amount of Second Grade products, the price descends this year while the First Grade is still expensive and limited. However, as Rich Group followed the industry in Russian from very beginning of the harvest season, we have confidently collected data and information which help us choose the best ones precisely. Beside that, before we place an order, we always do strict inspections and only those which shows stable result will be ordered. The diversity of Russian pink salmon this year is huge, the good ones are expensive and the worse have descending price as they are rotting. But Rich always trustworthily purchase the best fish which of course comes with a higher price. This is the reason why our offer might be a bit higher than others. With Rich Group, you are always guaranteed with best quality. We are looking forward to cooperating with you.