Processing Swiftlet nest is a growing industry in Malaysia - Sơ chế tổ yến là một ngành công nghiệp đang phát triển ở Malaysia

In the recent years, swiftlet farming industry in Malaysia has been growing tremendously. Malaysia is now the third largest producers of swiftlet bird nest after Indonesia and Thailand. Countries such as China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are the main importers for processed swiftlet bird nest. Although, Malaysia’s switflet farming has reach a matured industry level, swiflet raw bird nest processing industry is still an emerging business unexplored by the Malaysian entrepreneur. Therefore, a majority of swiftlet farmers trade their raw birds nest to a middle man for export which fetch a lower selling price. Generally, unprocessed nest fetch as low as RM2500 per kg to RM6,000 per kg. Whereas, processed nest could fetch a retail price as high as RM13,000 per kg to RM15,000 per kg in China and Hong Kong. So, why is Malaysia still lack of the industry for processing of swiftlet bird nest even though processed nest fetch a higher price as compared to the unprocessed nest?

Challenges in Processing Swiftlet Nest

Traditionally, bird nest is cleaned by soaking the nest in the water and workers struggle to hand pick all the tiny feathers by a tweezer. This procedure is extremely slow and tedious. An experienced worker may produce only 3 to 4 nest a day, weighing about 300 to 800 gram a month. Furthermore, such cleaning method could not produce a generally good bird nest "cup" shape and more often end up being bird nest biscuit which fetch a lower price and less in demand.However, some swiftlet farmers have developed method using chemicals to reduce the time and effort of their workers to clean the bird nest. Information regarding such method remained a highly trade secret and are not reveal to the outsiders. Until recently, a few companies emerged in providing consultation and training for swiftlet bird nest processing. There are different methods or procedures offered from various companies ranging from dry to Chemical Free method. Many people have attended such training course but were not completely contented simply the method thought was still far too time consuming and or could not produce generally good "cup" shape bird nest.

The right choice for choosing the cleaning method

Whether it a dry, semi-dry or chemical free method you choose to clean the nest, ultimately the method you use must be acceptable by the buyer. In general, a raw birds’ nest can contain or attached with feathers, egg shell, mold, bird’s shit, insects and bacteria. So, what is the fastest and effective method to remove all of these? First of all, to remove the tiny feathers attached in the nest strands, the nest need to be moist. This will enable the nest to soften and allow the feathers to be pull away from the detach strand. However, a heavily moist nest tends to break apart and difficult to mold back into a "Cup" shape.As of bacteria, mold and shit on the nest, water only could not completely remove this contaminant from the nest and therefore are still not safe for human consumption. Furthermore, for export quality, all food products are required to meet the bacteria count on the product not exceeding the limit for safe human consumption. While all contaminant on the raw nest need to be removed, the natural structure and shape of the swiftlet nest also need to be preserved. It is preserving the original form of the bird nest that makes the processed clean nest expensive. Despite the fact that many people continue to search and develop new method or procedure to maintain such exceptional high requirement, many will fail. The choice of the cleaning method will be ultimately determine by the bird nest buyer which they have a standard quality to comply. This standard quality determines the price of processed nest.

Developing the business

There are various approaches to develop and invest into the bird nest cleaning industry. Depending on your financial ability, you could start up by setting up a cleaning factory with the scale that is comfortable for you. Whether it is a small set-up from working at home or having 5 to 10 workers or more, depends on the following consideration. Some of the following points to consider when setting up a Birds’ Nest cleaning are stocks availability, cleaning processes, quality control, market, return of investment, licensing & regulatory requirement,
1.Stock-Where to get the raw nest? - Stock or raw materials apart from Raw Birds nest such as processing tools and equipment, needs to be taken into consideration. Most people will consider only the raw nest availability but forgetting the needs to ensure other raw material required for the processing of the raw nest. So before you start to employ the workers to process the raw nest, ensure your supplies of raw nest is sufficient for minimum of 3 months. This is because during the eggs laying season, the breeders are not allow to harvest the nest until the newly born swiftlet are able to fly and feed themselves. And during this time, it is usually a shortage of raw bird nest in the market.
2.Cleaning method – Is your cleaning method acceptable by the buyer? – Different cleaning method is available. Choosing the method acceptable by buyer is important. It is important to get your buyer confirmation on the method you are using before you start producing cleaned nest. Your buyer may not agree to certain cleaning method or quality of clean nest you produce without prior agreement. It is utterly important if the buyer can produce you some guidelines for the standard they required. Confusion or rejection of cleaned nest can be minimized if such guidelines are available.
3.Quality control – How to minimize reject and control my cleaned nest quality? – For all processing, you will need to implement a quality control program. As cleaning raw bird nest involve a lot of manual work, you will need a few quality control station beginning from the raw bird nest to the end product. Such quality control could be breakdown to intermediate station such as
1.Receiving Station
Grading Raw Nest – This to ensure that the raw nest you purchase is in accordance to the grade you required.
Weigh of Raw Nest – This to ensure your processed nest wastage does not exceed your estimation.
2.Processing Station
1.Brushing – Inspection of residual of mold and dots
2.Feathers removing – Inspection of residual fine feathers.
3.Molding – Inspection of gap and cracks.
4.Packing – Weighing of the cleaned nest. This will also indicate your final wastage of the processed nest.
4.Market – How do I market my product? – You will need to consider your target market for your cleaned nest. For export market, bird nest biscuit is very less in demand. Only complete bird nest cup shape is for export market. Would your marketing thru a local agent or direct to the local consumer. Would you be promoting your own brand? You would have to compete with some of the establish brand in the market.
5.Licensing- What sort of license required? For export of bird nest you need license by the Jabatan Perhilitan and Majlis Perbandaran. You will also need the buyer to obtain the import license from the designation country to avoid confiscation of your nest. However, if your buyer is a local agent who collect and resell, you would not be required to obtain such license.
6.Return on investment – How do I get back my investment.

Source: http://www.twelvespring.com.my/

Mang 150kg tổ yến không khai báo hải quan

Chi cục Hải quan sân bay Tân Sơn Nhất (TP.HCM) cho biết đã phát hiện 3 hành khách quốc tịch Malaysia nhập cảnh ngày 10.3 mang theo lượng tổ yến lên đến 150 kg (loại nguyên tổ), trị giá gần 4,5 tỉ đồng không khai báo (theo quy định, khách được mang lượng tổ yến miễn thuế trị giá tối đa là 5 triệu đồng).

Chi cục Hải quan sân bay Tân Sơn Nhất đã phạt vi phạm hành chính tổng cộng 68 triệu đồng và cho tái xuất lô hàng này.

Hoàng Việt

Nguồn: www.thanhnien.com.vn

Swiftlet housing boom - Bùng nổ nhà nuôi chim yến

The insatiable appetite of Chinese everywhere for bird’s nest has spawned a multi-million ringgit swiftlet farming business in Malaysia. JESSICA LIM and WILSON HENRY find out that the booming industry is ironically also the white-nest swiftlet’s best chance for survival.
THE heavy metal door creaked open, and we were ushered forth into inky blackness.

Every opening to the outside world had been bricked up save one on the highest floor. The three-storey shoplot was completely bare — no furniture, appliance or amenities.

The toilets weren’t working and the floor was spattered with droppings which squished underfoot.

Turn up your nose, as you might, at the thought of living in such a dwelling, but to the hundreds of little birds whose nests were glued to the plywood beams on the ceiling, this was home.
As Malaysia Bird’s Nest Merchants Association assistant secretary Mah Swee Lye carefully hold up a thumbnail-sized white- nest swiftlet egg, his satisfaction was evident.

"We want the baby birds to come back to this house to build their own nests in time. So we make sure this is like a five-star hotel to them," he grinned, before gently returning the egg to the nest.

Bird’s nest, highly sought after for centuries because of its acclaimed medical and therapeutic properties, was once exclusively served only to Chinese emperors, their families and the most senior of court officials.

Now, anyone can have a bowl, if he digs deep into his pocket.

White-nest swiftlet nests, which can fetch over RM6,000 a kilogramme, are the most highly prized of edible bird’s nests.

This is because, except for a few strands of downy black feathers, it is purely the hardened saliva of the swiftlet.
In contrast, nests of black-nest and glossy swiftlets are enmeshed with feathers, moss and grass.

Indonesia supplies well over half of the 200-tonne global demand every year. Malaysia, the third largest producer after Thailand, meets about 10 per cent of world demand.

To build a bird house

As we toured the swiftlet house by torchlight, Mah pointed out a CD player placed against a wall. Wires ran from it to loudspeakers in various corners of the house, including a solitary window on the third floor.

Several hours a day, a recording of swiftlet songs would be played in an attempt to draw young birds to the house.

Yes, it is the birds that are just striding out on their own and looking to set up home which are targeted.

Once a swiflet builds its nest, it would return season after season to the same spot. If the nest is removed, it would simply build another.

Mah said there are consultants who charge a few hundred ringgit for a recording.

Association members’ own recordings seem to work just as well, he said.

"We change tracks sometimes. We’d try baby bird sounds, mating calls or sounds of them playing.

"We have to test to see what works. Hopefully they’d come, see how nice it is in here, then decide to build their nests."

Mah explained that a temperature of 28 degrees celsius and humidity of 80-90 per cent was needed to simulate the conditions found in caves.

The conditions are maintained with the help of a simple contraption comprising a few large PVC pipes that lead to the outside the building. Some buckets of water are placed directly under these vents to keep the air damp. BIRD HOTEL BROADCAST: ’We’d try baby bird sounds, mating calls or sounds of them playing,’ Mah explains.

While no effort is spared in seeing to the swiftlets’ needs, "hotel owners" must also take special security precautions.

"The house is mine, the birds are mine, but sometimes the nests are not mine," said Mah.

Thieves steal nests regardless of whether they contain babies or eggs.

So, deterrents include installation of heavy locks, night-vision CCTVs and motion-sensor alarm systems.

From caves to soup bowls

Traditionally, nests were collected from caves. It was a risky affair involving Orang Asli "harvesters" scaling rickety scaffoldings that were as high as 60 metres up the cave walls.

It was sometimes preceded by elaborate rituals involving animal sacrifices to appeal to the spirits for a safe day of nest collection.

Swiftlet houses have been proliferating in the country ever since white-nest swiftlets were discovered nesting in abandoned shophouses in coastal towns about 20 years ago.

From 100-odd in 1995, local entrepreneurs — taking advantage of the strong demand for the delicacy in China and Hong Kong — today operate an estimated 10,000 shophouse swiftlet hotels around the country.

Mah said the nests are checked regularly and harvested only when the baby birds can fly and fend for themselves. This will be when the birds are about two months old.

The nests are sold to middlemen, and most of them are sent to Indonesia for processing, where impurities are painstakingly removed using tweezers.

"In Indonesia, girls aged between 14 and 18 are employed for this job. Their only qualification is that they must have good eyesight," said Mah, who visited one such Indonesian factory recently.

And their nests shall save them

Swiftlet farming in Malaysia has the full support of the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan).

Perhilitan Biological Conservation Department director Siti Hawa Yatim said it is the high value of the nests that puts the birds at risk in the first place, but the activity is also the only thing that could possibly save them.

"I’m pretty sure the swiftlets aren’t exactly happy when their nests are taken away, but observation shows that they cope well with it," she said.

"The harvesters want to increase nest production in their shophouses, so they make sure the baby birds are fully mature before removing the nests.

"And we’re finding that as long as their babies survive, the parent birds are pretty okay with the deal."

In contrast, she said that in caves, greedy opportunists would grab every nest they see, thinking "I have to take it before someone else does".

In studies done in cave swiftlet communities in Pulau Tinggi and Pulau Redang, the department found that nests were often scraped off cave walls even before they were fully formed.

It was also distressing to see broken eggs and dead baby birds on the cave floors, Siti Hawa said.

After a trip to Indonesia in 1996 organised by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, Perhilitan was convinced that commercial farming was the best way to bring the dwindling numbers of white-nest swiftlets back up.

Siti Hawa said the department was aware an estimated 70 per cent of swiftlet "hotels" end in failure, and research was underway to figure out how to turn those statistics around.

One project specifically studies the calls of the swiftlet.

"There are over 1,000 swiftlet call CDs out there, but only a small number of them actually work.

"We’re trying to understand why, so that we can encourage more people to try their hand in this business."

Perhilitan is also studying artificial incubation as a way of increasing the bird’s population.

Siti Hawa explained that white-nest swiftlets produce as many eggs as they can during a breeding period. If an egg is removed, the parent would quickly lay another.

Commercial breeding has been used as a conservation strategy before, but on a small scale, such as with with song birds Murai Batu (common shama) and speaking birds Tiong Mas (hill mynah).

As much as she would like to see the swiftlets thriving naturally without human intervention, Siti Hawa admitted that it wasn’t a realistic hope given the commercial value of their nests.

"If their nests weren’t so valuable, they would be quite safe. Other swiflet species which don’t produce edible nests are abundant, nobody bothers them.

"It’s not their fault that people want their nests. If we don’t protect them this way, they’ll die out."

Source: www.twelvespring.com.my