The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries plans to extend their backhouse to cater for increasing demand from exporters with their products brought in to be washed and cleaned before exporting.

The rise in the number of exporters who used the Ministry’s backhouse for frozen product as well as fresh produce was another concern during the new Minister's discussion with all the exporters earlier this month. 

Some exporters mentioned that one issue that they have been experiencing was the lack of plugs to hook in containers that frozen their product before exporting them.

In an interview on Tuesday with the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, La'auli Leuatea Schmidt, he said that the plan is on the table and it will be done sooner rather than later.

"That is the plan that it’s already on the table, and it will be done sooner than later," he said in an interview.

The plan is to extend the backhouse a little bit further and we need to add three or four plugs to connect and hook containers that frozen product of the exporters."

“I have been visiting the backhouse last week and there is a need to spread it out wider so that the Ministry can cater for all the exporters and to meet the demand of export product bring in to the backhouse for backing, cleaning and other preparation before exporting."

The M.A.F. Backhouse at Atele was established in the year 2010 and this year recorded 21 active exporters with a lot of inactive exporters who use the backhouse. It has six free face plugs that hook up to the containers to frozen product and fresh product as well. 

It backhouse also have four vacuum seals but only one plug to connect it. The frozen product was first start from 2015 and because of the impact of covid 19 pandemic, the exporters prefer to frozen their product because it last and meet the uncertainty of vessels to delivered the product overseas.

A meeting last month with Laauli Leuatea Schmidt marked the first time the local producers had met with the new Government with overseas export markets on the agenda of their meeting.

The local produce exporters used the opportunity to highlight the challenges that they continue to face following the COVID-19 pandemic and what they think the Ministry should do to address the issues.

La’auli said the Government is looking forward to helping the country’s local exporters with their produce.

“The Ministry is willing to help and support the exporters in any ways that we can, but we need to work together as a team to address these issues and achieve our goals.”