MIFCO brand canned fish has become a rare item on sale over increasing demand and scarcity of other imported canned fish products.
The rising demand was not met with adequate supply as several other brands have slowed down in market, pushing MIFCO's canned fished range to a market brink. Several general store and shop outlets have started to run dry of the brand's canned fish products.
A local shop owner shared his resentment in receding business of canned fish products, as he was quoted saying "it's been days since we have been experiencing the slow supply of canned fish products. We are facing the associated consequences of this."
MIFCO's Managing Director Adhlee Ismail explained the reason behind the relative nonavailability of canned fish products as he said "MIFCO is producing canned fish at the same rate as before. The actual reason for the situation is due to the drop in supply of canned fish from other brands, their import has declined considerably. Fish prices has hiked in world market and importing empty cans for fish manufacturing is affected due to this."
Ismail claimed his company produces approximately 2100 cases of canned fish per day, which is the usually manufactured and processed rate.
"Most of the merchandise is taken to STO (State Trading Organization), and we are not targeting local market exclusively. We need to cater for the orders received abroad" MIFCO's Managing Director said.
He had stressed the issue was being countered for resolution, adding the production capacity at Felivaru fish processing factory will be introduced with overhead addition. He confirms the factory will operate at full production capacity by November.
The state owned fish processing company accounts for a large portion of fish exported from Maldives. However due to a string of financial setbacks, MIFCO was transformed into a subsidiary act under state and public owned State Trading Organization on September 2016 to adjust for the losses.
At the time of the corporate takeover, MIFCO's cashflow had MVR 300 million in debt, meanwhile the continued failure on settling payments to local fishermen had added more to the commotion.
Since MIFCO going under STO's wing, a large sum of the debt had been cleared.
