We had quite a few indirect inquiries to buy European perch from Russia. The perch in question is sweetwater river perch, also known as Eurasian perch or perca fluviatilis. The perch is for export and clients want to buy perch filets of a specific grade. And demand is high.
What’s the Problem?
But the problem with all this is that European perch is harvested on a small scale. So, you can neither get huge tonnage nor induce big fish grade of investors to swim in these murky waters. Bigger fish, and, we mean bigger fish business-wise not from the standpoint of marine biology — prefer large-scale aquacultural projects. Industrial salmon farming would be a good example. They raise salmon pretty much as if they were hogs. The approach is similar if not identical.
Wild Fish.
And clients – all of whom are in “Old” Europe though we guess that Japan and even North-America can be interesting markets for freshly processed frozen filets of European perch, caught in pristine rivers of Northern Russia and Siberia, so clients don’t want farmed fish. So, what do we have here? A niche market with an exceptionally high return on investment. Not just some potentially high return on investment but high return right now. You come, you buy fish, you process it, and you’d earn money. We can’t tell you how much but a lot. OK. Forget oil and natural gas. Look at the return from pharmaceuticals but without all the approval wait.
And the catch?
Talking of the fish, the catch here is that the catch is small. It is a boutique opportunity. But It’s exciting. With an investment of about 3 million euros or its equivalent in roubles, less if you want to move in and work on this on your own, you’d be able to get your principal back within one year to three years, so you can guess the rate of return. But there could be unforeseen events such as some pandemic destroying the fish, meteorite striking the mother Earth, or some other calamity that cannot be a part of anyone’s business plan or even imagination.
Is there a plan?
By the way, f you just want just to buy river perch, also drop us a note. I, as the editor of this site, wrote a business plan and a cost analysis for the European perch business. It involves procurement of fish in smaller batches from fishermen (you cannot get so much fish from a single source. This is a consolidation setup), processing it somewhere in the northwest of Russian, as a point of reference we used St. Petersburg or a location close to St. Petersburg, obtaining proper licensing and approvals for the processing facility, which has to be certified for export to the EU (there are a few countries with huge appetites for this fish) and having enough capital to begin deliveries. In case of genuine interest, please contact us.
I could even provide you with a sample business plan – the figures are real, but this is only in case if the interest is genuine or perhaps there is slightly more than just idle interest.
European perch and other types of river fish for export present a huge business opportunity in Russia. There are also ways to branch into aquaculture but that’s a different topic that we’ll save for the later.
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