During VICTAM Asia 2026, co-located with Animal Health and Nutrition Asia in Bangkok, Thailand, Feed Strategy spoke with exhibitors about the trends and challenges shaping the region's feed sector. In this interview, Terence Hui, Asia sales lead for Hong Kong-based trading company Apollonia Trade Limited, discusses how the company sources fishmeal and fish feed from suppliers across Europe, the Americas and Asia amid daily market volatility — from Morocco's fishing ban to shifting freight costs — and why he expects protein substitution to play a growing role in aquaculture feed over the next 12 months.
Interview with Terence Hui, sales manager, Apollonia Trade Limited
Jackie Roembke, editor-in-chief, WATT Feed Brands: Hi, everyone. Jackie Roembke here, reporting from VICTAM Asia, also co-located with Animal Health and Nutrition Asia. So today, we are going to share some of the conversations that we had with exhibitors here at the exhibition in Bangkok, Thailand.
Terence Hui, sales manager, Apollonia Trade Limited: I'm Terence Hui. I am from Hong Kong. My company is Apollonia Trade. I am responsible for sales in Asia. We trade fish meal and fish feed from Europe, the Americas and the rest of Asia into the Asian market.
Roembke: As a trading and distribution company, how are you matching feed ingredient supply from global production regions to the specific needs of Southeast Asian buyers — and how does that process differ market to market across the region?
Hui: As a trading company, it's our job to see and understand the supply and client base, so we have a very large supplier base around the world. For example, we understand all our clients in Asia, in different markets. In Thailand or Vietnam, they focus more on protein quality, but in other regions such as the Philippines or Indonesia, they're more price-sensitive. With our supplier base, we know what kind of suppliers offer what kind of products, and we can offer the respective product categories to each of our clients.
Roembke: Your business spans both animal feed ingredients and seafood — how does that dual focus give you an advantage in serving aquafeed producers in Southeast Asia, where the two supply chains often intersect?
Hui: Operating across feed ingredients across Asia, we understand the market is changing every day. Especially right now, there are many challenges that we are facing every day: freight costs, changing demands, different requirements across markets, politics, different logistics challenges. It's very hard for us, or the industry, to adapt to the daily changes for all the clients and all the suppliers. For example, right now, our biggest suppliers in Morocco are having a fishing ban, so they're slowing down their fish feed and fishmeal production in the plant. However, they are focusing all their resources on seafood processing for the retail market and also for canned seafood. We are traders focused on the production side and also the retail side, so that gives us a very big advantage for shifting our focus, or aligning our risk, in different areas.
Roembke: Traceability and certification are increasingly non-negotiable for feed buyers in export-oriented markets — how are you vetting and guaranteeing the compliance of the suppliers in your network?
Hui: We are very serious about our suppliers. Before we work with them, we ask them for very transparent information for our team. For example, we require all of them to have a very transparent origin of the materials. We have them use an independent surveyor to inspect their goods regularly. We will also have them carry, for example, ASC certification, because the final consumers are also from the retail industry. They are demanding different food source trading, because we are promoting healthy food sources. Everything we are reselling, of course, has MarinTrust and MSC certification for all the seafood for the retail industry. And besides all this documentation, we also focus on the relationships with all the suppliers and clients, and we focus much on the demand of the retail industry and the category demand across the world.
Roembke: Feed ingredient prices and availability have been volatile in recent years — how are you helping customers manage that uncertainty through your sourcing strategy or contract structures?
Hui: Right now, the pricing is changing very differently. Also, the supplies are changing. For example, our strength is in Europe. We have different sources from Spain, Morocco, Greece, Turkey, the UK — all across Europe. But the demand can shift, the supply can shift. Sometimes people can change the production process, but we have to be transparent to all our clients. Our job is to make sure we have all the options provided to all the clients to make sure they can choose from what they have. And we can offer different types of solutions or options for them to choose from — different protein contents or additives or different ingredients and nutrition levels for their fish farm — so that we can really adapt to the market well and make sure they can get all their supplies from us at a very good price.
Roembke: Looking at the next 12 months, which ingredient categories or trade flows do you expect to shift most significantly for Southeast Asian feed buyers, and how is Apollonia positioning for that?
Hui: Over the next 12 months, we are thinking, as the supply is changing, suppliers will sell to the market with some kind of substitution on protein level and also nutrition substitution for their fish farm or for their aquaculture raw material. Besides the traditional fishmeal or fish feed we are currently selling, I'm expecting more substitution like additives, soybean, corn gluten meal — something extra or new products that can be available in the market. As traders, we understand the market. We know many people on the supplier side. We can understand, for example, in Asia, we know that there are more additives or protein substitutes for aquaculture feed. And in Europe as well, and the Americas, they're restoring their supplies to their clients around the world. So we'll keep updating our clients and provide our best solutions to all of them in Asia.