Crazy For Crustaceans

Desmond Chow of Singapore Crawfish aims to revolutionise food security one critter at a time.

- Lu Yawen

Clad in a blue blazer with patchwork elbow accents, Desmond Chow poses for a picture with two crawfish, fiddling with them as he holds them up next to his face. Crustaceans are not usually the props for most of The Peak’s photo shoots, but they’re given centre stage this time as they are something special to Chow.

Singapore Crawfish’s marketing managing partner is one of the few people with a deep understanding of the life cycle of freshwater crawfish. His small company started in 2018 and soon evolved into a farm at Sungei Tengah. Two years of research and testing later, Singapore Crawfish has narrowed down the process of crawfish breeding to three elements – aquaculture technology, genetics and a secret feed formula.

Using these critters, he says, the food security problems beginning in Southeast Asia can be alleviated. To reduce the barriers of entry to a minimum, its aquaculture system, which has already been purchased by farms in Indonesia and Malaysia, can be installed as a whole, including equipment and technology that removes bacteria from the water, automatically separates juveniles from the adults, and tracks growth.

Astacology or the study of crawfish hasn’t always been Chow’s passion. He is a former lecturer in international business management and entrepreneurship who can now recite statistics (about crawfish, of course) offthe top of his head.