July 9, 2020

Chinese company first to offer BAP-certified crayfish  

China's Deyan Aquatic Products & Food Co. Ltd. has recently become the world's first company eligible to offer two-star Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) crayfish, the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) announced.

Deyan's two processing plants and two farms have attained BAP certification in the spring, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The company is located in central China's Hubei province, an area hard hit by COVID-19.

Founded in 1994, Deyan is one of China's leading crayfish (also known as crawfish) and catfish producers, with about 2,000 hectares of company-owned farms, and about 200,000 tonnes of annual processing capacity. The company is also eligible to offer three-star BAP catfish. One notable development is that Deyan's online sales in domestic market enjoyed a 415% increase through the e-commerce platform JD.com from January to May this year.

UK-based The Big Prawn Company is among the global companies that sources crayfish from Deyan.

"Big Prawn have been supporting a number of crayfish improvement projects in China for the last five years and has more recently worked with GAA on this initiative over the last two years. We have accompanied GAA in China, carried out pre-assessments with GAA and worked with our suppliers to support certification," said Will Rash, managing director of Big Prawn. "We are delighted that our support has helped to achieve the first certified crayfish in China with two-star BAP, and we will continue to support further certification of crayfish in China. Crayfish is an iconic ingredient, and we look forward to developing this recognition in the UK for the retail and sandwich sectors."

- Global Aquaculture Alliance