Catfish exporter cuts R100-m deal

Ray Smuts THE WHISKERED catfish is not about to win any piscatorial beauty contests but its culinary appeal is legendary, a fact not lost on an enterprising businessman who has started a project to produce farm-raised catfish in the North West. The day of ambling down to the Mississippi River with a bottle of moonshine "to get me a catfish" are long gone as farm-raised catfish - known in South Africa as barbel, in the USA as the King of Acquaculture - is huge business in North America thanks to per capita consumption doubling over the past three years. The Americans just cannot resist that firm-flesh texture and consistently good taste. (Country singer Dolly Parton is a recipient of the 'Celebrity Catfish Lover' award) Thanks to an initial R6 million provided by the South African Land Bank, Johannes Kooij has started Catfish Supreme and completed deals worth R100 million to export in excess of 700 tons of fresh and smoked fillets of the bottom feeder to Japan and Thailand over the next two years. Using old mining slime dams, he constructed a small-scale barbel farm to produce marketing examples for presentation to customers in Germany and Japan, followed by construction of 40 ponds capable of yielding 200 tons of the fish a year. The second phase, which required a further R45 million injection, will increase production to 1 500 tons a year which should turn over around R30 million a year. Kooij's project is operated together with a German company, Megafish, which has supplied the processing equipment.