Guolian takes seafood to world markets

When US consumers go to the freezers of their local supermarket to buy frozen seafood, there is a good chance it will have been imported from China.

If the menu choice is tilapia or shrimp, it is equally likely it will have come from Zhanjiang Guolian Aquatic Products, a company based in the southern part of the Chinese mainland that has a complete supply chain in the seafood industry, from research and hatcheries through process and packaging to providing customized products for US chain restaurants.

Guolian's general manager Chen Han said the company was founded in 2011 and started exporting to the United States the following year. The US market was always part of the business plan, he said.

"About 80 percent of the tilapia sold in the US market is from China," Chen said. "Guolian supplies about one-quarter of that."

In addition, about 40 percent of the shrimp exported to the US from China is from Guolian, along with New Zealand green-lipped mussels, tiger prawns from Australia and other aquatic products imported in bulk from around the world to be processed and marketed from the Zhanjiang base.

In 2011, Guolian purchased Sunnyvale Seafood - a company based in San Francisco for 30 years that is now a sales and delivery outlet for the group, as well as a base for importing seafood from the US to China.

Guolian has an annual sales volume of about 3.1 billion yuan ($486 million), of which the US company accounts for approximately one-third.

"The United States was our majority market and before we purchased Sunnyvale, we did business with traders and importers," Chen said. "We use Sunnyvale to contact our final customers directly. We can also use Sunnyvale to research resources for seafood in the US to bring to the Chinese market in the future."

Guolian, which raised 1 billion yuan when it listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2010, is the only seafood company in China that can export shrimps to the US with no tariff applied. It is also the first aquatic products company in China to use a real-time monitoring system of its processing lines, which partners and buyers in other countries can access.

The company has hatcheries and farms for both tilapia and shrimp in Zhanjiang, as well as producing aquatic feed for its own use and for sale. Guolian also cooperates with Guangdong Ocean University on research. Guolian's products are available on five e-commerce platforms, one of which is self-owned.

Cooperation with the US is expected to increase, Chen said.

"In the future, we will keep our sales average but also do more import business," he said.

Contact the writer at traciebarrett@gmail.com

(China Daily 09/22/2015 page17)