Doubling production is just a fi rst step

Rainbow trout is the most commonly farmed species in Romania after common carp. Production is in raceways, ponds, tanks, and even in cages in lakes, and the fish are grown to sizes up to several kilos depending on the end customer.

Possibly the country’s biggest producer of rainbow trout is the company, Păstrăvăriile Ceahlăului, that has a production facility in a hydropower dam lake near Bicaz, some 150 km west of Iasci. e company is part of the SCR Group, a conglomerate with interests in chemicals, industry, and electronic devices, among other activities. Within the group an entity called the Blue Division is responsible for sh farming, sh processing, and related areas of business such as restaurants. Păstrăvăriile Ceahlăului has an area of three hectares on the lake which host thirty-two 16 m diameter and eight 20 m diameter cages. Access to the cages is a short boat trip from the shore of the lake. Burak Unalan, the manager of the facility says the volume of trout sold last year was 650 tonnes out of a total production of 900 tonnes.

Cheap imports make life difficult for Romanian producers

e entire production from the farm is sold, but Mr Unalan is concerned at the volume of trout that is entering the Romanian market from abroad and at rock bottom prices. A couple of years ago it was sh from Turkey that was undercutting locally produced trout, though that seems to have dried up as more Turkish sh is diverted for on-growing to the Black Sea. But now, according to Mr Unalan, trout from other EU countries is entering Romania and being sold at prices that are hard to believe as they barely cover the cost of feed and juveniles. We buy a good, though not a top-of-the-line, feed from a reputed company and the price of a truck load of feed (23.5 tonnes) has risen from EUR23,000 in 2019 to EUR32,000 today, he says. e cost of feed although a signicant part of the costs of running a sh farm is not the only outlay. ere have been steep increases in energy and fuel costs and the cost of labour is going up as well. Explaining the cheap price of sh from other parts of the EU, Mr Unalan guesses that it is the higher volume per production unit that enables the producers to sell at low prices as the high production volumes reduces the cost per unit. In Romania we are not in the same position, he says. Here, we are probably the only farm with a production of close to 1,000 tonnes. But because of the multi-year production cycle on big farms in other countries, the higher degree of automation, and the lesser dependence on labour, production per person is higher than it is in Romania. On our farm, Mr Unalan says, production per person is 90 tonnes while in other countries it can be 120 to 130 tonnes. Moreover, in case of emergencies such as a lack of water or the threat of disease, it is better to sell at any price than to let the sh go waste. Processing plants are also bigger and can handle large volumes of sh, 40-50 tonnes of sh a day is not uncommon, unlike in Romania where facilities tend to be more modest.

Plans include greater value addition and growing trout in the Black Sea

Catalin Platon, president of the Romanian Fish Farmers’ Association, says that trout is like a commodity, the technology is established, the feeds are well developed, the prices are similar, and the margins are meagre, so to make money a farmer must have the volumes. Of course, adding value to the sh, by processing it is another way to improve the bottom line, but at Păstrăvăriile Ceahlăului currently 80 of the sales are ice. e remaining 20 is llets. e company also has a small production, 10 of the total, of what Mr Unalan calls salmon trout, which is essentially rainbow trout raised on a specially pigmented feed and grown to a 2.5 kg. e feed gives the sh esh a pink to orange shade like salmon, hence the name salmon trout. Mr would like to increase this fraction because it is more pro table. Increasing production of this salmon trout would not add to the costs except for that of feed and so would contribute to the pro t margins. Mr Unalan would consider growing rainbow trout in the Black Sea, something that Turkish companies are doing very successfully. e sh grow very rapidly in that environment, but the Romanian authorities have not yet allowed aquaculture there, so Mr Unalan must wait with his plans. In any event the company must be prepared for signi cantly higher costs when growing sh in the Black Sea. Cage infrastructure must be stronger, feed volumes increase, the cost of logistics goes up, and more labour is required than for a comparable facility in a lake.

Alexandra Bizu supervises the production of processed products, now mainly gutted fish but due to include smoked trout shortly.

Consumers tend to favour domestically-grown trout

e salmon trout in the dam lake is grown to 2.5 kg which gives a net weight of over 2 kg when they are cleaned. At this size the colour is also better, and so is the yield when it is processed into llets or other cuts. It takes two summers to reach this size, as there is little growth in the winter, the water temperature being too low. is year in February it was 2 degrees C and even in April was only 5 degrees C. e rainbow trout, on the other hand, is grown to 500 g over a period of about six months. We grow the rainbow trout to this size to reduce the cost of the ngerlings, which are sourced from other companies, as a proportion of the price of the sh, says Mr Unalan. We do everything we can to keep our costs low and e ciency high. As a Romanian producer he nds that consumers are generally willing to pay a little extra for sh produced in Romania. is is a big advantage and enables us to compete with cheaper products from other countries, he says. e company’s customers are mainly the supermarket chains within Romania. Current production just covers the demand from clients, but with the launch of the new processing line the company also hopes to start exporting. Mr Unalan hopes to add another 12 cages of 20 m diameter to the production facility which should take production to 2,000 tonnes without major investments. e twist is that permission is needed from the authorities to put the cages in the water and that is a slow process. e time taken to get permits and clearances will also a ect another project Mr Unalan would like to initiate. is is the production of striped bass (Morone saxatilis), a sh with delicate white meat and very few bones that lends itself to cold smoking. On the other hand, common carp, though a popular sh in Romania, is slow growing and would call for a separate processing line, so diversifying into this species would be complicated. But rst, we want to optimise our production of trout, says Mr Unalan, to double our existing volumes. Selling the sh will not prove di cult; the product is extremely fresh as it is harvested one day and the next morning it is at the supermarket counter which is an advantage when compared to imported products. ese take a couple of days longer to reach the market implying a product that is not as fresh and that has a shorter shelf life. Trout does not retain the fresh look and feel for as long as marine sh, so a couple of days longer in transit makes a di erence to its appearance.

Gains in production must go together with improved efficiency

Since he started working for Păstrăvăriile Ceahlăului, Mr Unalan, a Turkish national, has focused not just on increasing the production but also on e ciency. As he says, anybody can grow sh, the point is to do it pro tably. is means keeping costs under control and staying competitive. e sh are grown in two cycles, a longer one in autumn that starts in October, and another starting at the end of March. At the end of December the water temperature falls to under 5 degrees C and only goes beyond that at the end of March. Below 5 degrees C it is very challenging to acclimatise the ngerlings; the air temperature might be as low as minus 15 degrees C, which is tough to work in, the water in the tanks that hold the ngerlings is 8 degrees C and the water in the lake may be 3 degrees C, so the risk of the ngerlings getting a shock is too high. In the spring the water temperature rises rapidly and the metabolism of the sh takes time to adapt, so Mr Unalan slows down the production by feeding the sh only half of what they are willing to eat. e sh thus take a little longer to reach the desired weight than they would, for example, in Turkey where conditions are better. Occasionally the oxygen level in the water may also fall below the optimum. en too the feeding is reduced to help the sh better cope. All the di erent parameters must be monitored constantly to ensure the welfare of the stock and to achieve the planned production targets.

More value added products are on the cards, but the owner of the company believes in vertical integration and is reluctant to outsource the processing operations. A processing facility has been built in Bicaz a few kilometres away from the lake so the sh can be harvested and processed immediately. A gutting machine is used to gut and clean the sh of a certain size, while bigger specimens are gutted manually. e bulk of the production is gutted sh on ice but in a few weeks the company will also hot smoke the sh, tests for which are currently being conducted. In 2024 the factory will be expanded to the neighbouring building to increase capacity. e ground level will then hold the primary processing while secondary processing such as modi ed atmosphere and skin packaging will be on the upper oor. is will increase the shelf life of the products from 10 to hopefully at least 20 days, says Eduard Voza, the director of the facility. A gourmet line of products will be introduced as well as high quality products for the Horeca sector. is will mean a reduction in the volumes of sh on ice in favour of processed sh.

Product targeted at retail chains and boutique shops

Marian Gavrilescu, who manages the sh-related activities at the head o ce in Bucharest, says sh is a small part now, but we expect it to play a signi cant role in the group in the future. is expectation is built partly on the prospect of raising rainbow trout in the Black Sea when the relevant legislation has been enacted. e sh is currently being sold primarily to the retail chains, Selvgros, Metro, Cora, Carrefour among others, but Mr Gavrilescu plans to develop sales to boutique shops, delicatessens, specialist shmongers and to organise events such as a trout festival to promote the company’s brands, Păstrăvăriile Ceahlăului and Trout from Bicaz, as well as trout consumption and sales. e products bearing the brands include gutted sh, but also spreads made with trout, and the smoked sh, when it appears on the market.

P str v riile Ceahl ului

Strada Barajului 47 Dodeni 615100

Romania

Farm manager: Burak Unalan

Ceahl ului Trout Processing Unit

Director: Edward Voze

Engineer: Alexandra Bizu

Blue Division, SCR Group

Director: Marian Gavrilescu

Activities: Farming and processing of rainbow trout

Production volumes: 900 tonnes per year raw material

Fish sizes: 500 g, 2.5 kg

Products: Fresh gutted fish on ice, smoked fish

Brands: Păstrăvăriile Ceahlăului, Trout from Bicaz

Employees in processing facility: 18

Markets: Romania

Customers: Retail chains

Other assets: Trout hatchery