Selling catfish in hampers increases farmers’ incomes

By selling locally produced live catfish in hampers, plastic boxes filled with water and perforated at the top, fish farmers are able to sell directly to the high-end market rather than middle-men who usually short-change the farmers on price.

Tunde Sanni, a fish farmer, owner of Tee Ess Farm, says: “A catfish hamper is sold for N15,000. We put two very big live catfish in the hamper weighing 5kg altogether. Customers who buy usually give them as gifts to high net-worth individuals like managing directors of blue-chip companies and monarchs.”

The catfish is delivered live in the boxes and can live for three to four days. When sold to marketers, farmers hardly get up to N5,000 from 5kg of catfish.

According to Sanni, it is also a means of promoting the brand of a farm as the plastic boxes usually carry the label of the farm, and this leads to repeated sales. Because the fish have to be bigger than the usual sizes to make the gift more attractive, the farmers who sell in hampers also buy large-size fish from other farms when they run out of stock, and then package, brand and sell to customers.

The main challenge is the logistics, getting the fish across to the customers/consumers and keeping them alive in traffic, as they are also delivered to recipients in other states of the federation. To ensure the fish can live for three to four days in the plastic, they are not fed so that they would not defecate and contaminate the water, which could lead to the death of the fish.

OLUYINKA ALAWODE