Those who have had a taste of the succulent tiger prawns from Langkawi sing its praises not just because of the technology used to harvest the prawns but for the fact that no chemicals are used throughout the cultivation process of the prawns.

The legendary island's tiger prawns also reach a commendable size with 35 to 40 prawns making up one kilogramme.

Due to this the tiger prawns of Langkawi have seen a surge in a demand for them from supermarkets such as Carrefour, Jaya Jusco, as well as other operators of restaurants and eateries nationwide.

To meet this growing demand, tiger prawns cultivator, Sumber Nadi Alam, a subsidiary of bumiputera owned Marine Ventures Sdn Bhd (TMV) plans to open 20 more of the tiger prawns breeding farms. This would bring Sumber Nadi Alam's total number of prawn breeding farms to 42 at the Bukit Malut breeding project site, here.

Its managing director, Hashnoel Mushim, told Bernama that the company had set a production target of 200 metric tonnes per year of the prawns compared with 150 metric tonnes achieved last year.

He said that there had been also demand for the product from Europe and Maldives but the company has not been able to meet the demand so far.

"Perhaps in the future with the increase in the number of breeding farms we have, we might be able to meet the demand," he said.

He said the company did not face any problem of getting the fry for breeding their tiger prawns following the opening of a tiger prawns hatchery centre at Bukit Malut here this month.

The centre is capable of producing seven million fries a month but for now it is initially producing only four million for the breeding farms in Bukit Malut, he said.

He said the company could also save RM500,000 per year following the building of the RM600,000 hatchery centre, as it no longer have to buy the fries from Pulau Pinang, Perak, Kedah and Thailand.

"We are also ready to help anyone including local entrepreneurs wanting to learn the tiger prawns cultivation techniques that we possess," he said.

Relating the expansion of the company's tiger prawns project, he said the company first started out with eight breeding farms and added the number of farms stage by stage to 22 in line with the increasing demand.

Hashnoel said he also hoped to make the prawns breeding centre in Bukit Malut as an agro-tourist destination.

He said that among the dignitaries who have visited the area were former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the Minister of Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

Meanwhile, senior manager of Jaya Jusco, Freddy Gui Hong Choon said that the company was ready to market more of the prawns to nine of its networks es pecially in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Johor Bahru and Melaka.

He said initially the supermarket chain was marketing between 200 and 300 kg of the prawns per week to six of its networks in Kuala Lumpur.

"We found that the Langkawi tiger prawns were of high quality following a study after which we decided to buy it directly from the breeders," he said.