History: The story began in 1994, when Warren Andrew Turner, the founder of Nam Sai Farms, was working on monosex tilapia technology at the Asian Institute of Technology (A.I.T.), Bangkok. Being fanatic about fish since childhood, having an MSc in aquaculture from Stirling University, Scotland and an ability to speak the Thai language (having previously been a VSO volunteer in Thailand), Warren decided to embark on the challenge of a lifetime.
To help him achieve it was his fiance Bu and a couple of Thai partners, called Pramot and Worapot, who became lifetime friends. Prachinburi province, due east of Bangkok, was chosen as the ideal site due to good water supply and the close vicinity of major markets. Bu came up with the name Nam Sai, which translates as clear water, and the rest is history.
Development of the company: The company was established in 1994 and the original plan was to produce two million high-quality, mono-sex tilapia fry to supply the Thai fish farming industry. Utilising a process of egg collection, incubation and sex reversal of swim-up fry in hapas for 21 days, using methytestosterone-impregnated feed, enabled male yields up to 100% on a regular basis. Early research at A.I.T. showed that fish produced by this technique are physically male for life, have normal levels of sex hormones and are perfectly safe to eat. Tilapia suddenly became a hugely popular species, as culture periods were almost cut in half, food conversion ratios drastically reduced and a harvest of large, even-sized individuals, not possible using mixed sex fish, was now a reality. The response from Thai fish farmers was overwhelming to the extent that Nam Sai now produces up to 20 million 1" monosex fry per month, covers an area of 64 hectares and employs 140 staff.
The development of Nam Sai Farms can be divided into 5 year periods. The first period was concerned with setting up the initial 10 hectare farm development and expanding production to suit the rising demand. Continual refinement and systemization of the rearing processes involved was undertaken and development of management systems that made large expansion possible without compromising quality. During this period the Nam Sai brand image began to emerge based on the farmer's conception of quality and ability of Nam Sai to supply vast numbers of fish at competitive prices.
The second period of development involved acquiring and developing new strains of tilapia that were strong and disease resistant and had good body shape, colour and fast growth. This began with the introduction of GIFT tilapia in 1997 and the opening of a new red tilapia farm in 2001 that produced three different strains of red tilapia. This created an immediate surge in demand and the process of strain development is ongoing. However, not all strains are successful and certain strains will come and go according to the market response.
The fourth period of development is still well in the future. It will most probably involve expansion into fish feed manufacture, involvement in marketing and processing tilapia (for domestic and international markets) and commercialization of the aquaculture equipment supply business (supporting farms overseas) that the company has become more and more involved in over the last few years. Nam Sai is also keen to produce other existing aquatic species, such as giant freshwater prawns (Machobrachium rosenbergii) that can be raised in polyculture with tilapia, as well as new aquatic species, such as basa catfish (Pangasius bocourti) that may well have a future of their own. Farming of organic tilapia is also becoming the focus of a lot of Nam Sai research and we may well see a return to the use of mixed sex tilapia to supply a more lucrative and environmentally-conscious consumer in the future.
The third period, which started in 2004, was aimed at making Nam Sai fish more easily available to farmers nationwide. To achieve this, Nam Sai envisaged development of franchise branches around the country and expansion of the "egg factory" to supply these branches with pre-sex reversed swim-up fry.
The first experimental branch opened in Nakhon Pathom province in March 2005 with the aim of supplying two million monosex fish of all Nam Sai tilapia strains to farmers located on the west side of Bangkok. Within two months of sales, the farm was producing at full capacity and demand quickly outstripped supply. Early quality tests (100% male for first test batch of 500 fish) have show that it is possible to attain the same high quality by ensuring that the branch stocks the same swim-up fry and uses the same feed (supplied by Nam Sai) as at the main farm. The next step is expansion of this branch and the development of other branches in key locations throughout the country.
