8.3 Marketing your freshwater prawns at your farm gate

You may want to sell your prawns on your farm or at your ‘farm gate’, or even along the roadside. Usually, prawns sold in this way are marketed whole and fresh (chilled). This is a particularly sensible way to market at least some of your harvest, especially if your farm is situated on a busy road or near a tourist site. You can sell prawns at lower prices than people can buy them in shops or markets but at prices greater than you would get if you sold them to a retailer. If your farm is large enough, or you can obtain prawns from neigh bouring farms, it may be worth building your own prawn restaurant.

TABLE 20

General recommendations to restaurants and consumers for handling and storing freshwater prawns

SOURCE: PHILLIPS AND LACROIX (2000)

 

 

Advertize your prawns (and/or your restaurant) with roadside signs, such as flags, balloons and banners (Figure 99), and make the prawns available at times when the great est number of people pass by your farm. You could open up every day, or advertize that you were (for example) open every Thursday. You may find it worth buying in farmed fish (or perhaps you produce these as well as freshwater prawns) for resale in order to make your roadside stand more useful to the customers. Roadside sales are the most profitable and are paid for mostly in cash. Tell people how to store and cook what they buy. The sale of other items, such as T-shirts, caps, handicrafts, etc., may provide additional income.
If your farm is large you may find it useful to offer prawns at a discounted price to your labourers; this discourages theft. However, the price must not be so far below normal market price that you end up providing your labourers with an incentive to buy larger quantities than they need, so that they can resell them!
Another marketing idea worth thinking about is to make your farm a tourist attrac tion. Many people are very interested in aquaculture and would enjoy visiting your farm. If you do this, make sure that visitors cannot interfere with farm operations. Several farms in the French West Indies offer tourists the opportunity to buy freshwater prawns and to visit the farms and test

Figure 99
Advertise your freshwater prawns at the farm gate (Martinique)

SOURCE: DENIS LACROIX

Caribbean traditional recipes in a restaurant located nearby.
If you do decide to sell all or part of your prawns at the farm, or by taking your own stand at a local market, it is very important that you should ensure that you do not damage the consumer image of your product. The prawns must not only be obviously clean and attractive looking but also be chilled or frozen properly. They should also be displayed in clean and hygienic conditions. Those selling the prawns must be clean and properly dressed.