The Passion for Prawns initiative has been developed in response to the industries key challenge of improving market value.
The Australian prawn farming industry has had a gradual decline in the average price recieved for its prawns over the past three to four years, and arresting and turning around this pattern is critical to the future success of the industry.
The 'Passion for Prawns' initiative will deliver investments across a range of activities all linked together with the shared goal of improving market value. By increasing the market value of farmed prawns the industry will significantly grow its value from its existing operational base.
This proposal which represents Stage One of the 'Passion for Prawns' initaitive will assist with creating the foundation for future activities in the intiative by identifying key measurable business performance indicators, and factors impacting on the performance of farms against those indicators.
By targeting our efforts through this preliminary work we will be better positioned to deliver nearer term outcomes.
Final report
The “Passion for Prawns’ Benchmarking Report has three distinct components. The first component relates to the collection of information pertaining to the production, processing and marketing practices currently undertaken by Australian aquaculture prawn growers. Further, this information has been used as the starting point for the development of a prawn industry specific benchmarking software tool that will allow for the ongoing entry of growers’ data and the calculation of both quantitative and qualitative Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). The benchmarking software is provisionally referred to as “PrawnBM”.
The second component of the report provides an outline of the key findings from the research that was undertaken with both post-farm gate members of the prawn supply chain as well as growers. In particular, it attempts to highlight the principal areas where CDIPM believes that the industry may benefit from investing time (and funds) that will allow the industry to achieve greater sustainability by providing a product that meets the needs of consumers. These focus areas can be grouped into cost reduction strategies, additional revenue generation activities and improved product quality activities.
The third component provides a series of recommendations on how the focus areas identified in the second component of the research may be undertaken by the industry, so that the industry and its members are given the tools to improve their economic performance and sustainability.