Lava Seawater, Clean and Clear Water made by the Ancient Jeju Sea

Jeju-do is called a repository of natural resources. Among them, there is a resource which has recently emerged in the spotlight of its remarkable industrial value. It is lava seawater. As underground water that seawater is naturally filtered after permeating volcanic bedrock layers, lava seawater is not normal seawater, but it is called ‘salted underground water’ because it contains salt. Lava seawater is concentrated and buried in quantity in the Eastern area of Jeju, where volcanic bedrock layers are widely distributed. The average reserves are estimated at 7.114 billion tons and although 1,000 tons are extracted every day, it can be used for as much as 19,602 years. Considering that it is continuously generated while being extracted, it is literally infinite resources.

Lava seawater, Jeju’s own resource, is rich in minerals and nutritive salts and is almost lacking in organic matters and pathogenes, so it is called safe and healthy water. It is why it is widely used as raw materials for drink, food and cosmetics. There is a company which develops healthy food by using lava seawater. These are flatfish farms in Jeju. We met SANGHOON HYUN, the director of HYUNHAE SUSAN, which is tarketing domestic and foreign consumers with flatfish of outstanding quality that they can eat without doubt because it is raised by lava seawater.

 

Flatfish raised by about 30 years of know-how and 2 generations of endurance

The history of HYUNHAE SUSAN goes back to the late 1980s, when flatfish farms were constructed in Jeju. His father who was in a public office and his mother who ran a handcraft shop arranged their work and started to culture flatfish in a sweet potato field of 1,984㎡ (600 pyung) in the whole area of Sincheon-ri, Seongsan-eup, Seogwipo-si, Jeju-do, Republic of Korea in 1989. After about 30 years, a farm size is 6,612㎡ (2,000 pyung).

HYUNHAE SUSAN has been operated with HYUNHAE Culture, and HYUNHAE Culture has been run by the director JIHOON HYUN who is a younger brother of the director SANGHOON HYUN and graduated from Proliferation Department (Currently, Marine Life Science Department) of Jeju National University and HYUNHAE SUSAN has been run by the director SANGHOON HYUN who has engaged in the distribution company as the director of the headquarters and in the tourism and leisure business for about 10 years after coming home 4 years ago. While HYUNHAE Culture actually raises flatfish and collects technical know-how, it may be considered that the director SANGHOON HYUN is mainly responsible for businesses related to a brand project, marketing and export in HYUNHAE SUSAN. The main products are live flatfish, with annual sales of about 1.3 billion won and among them, products worth 500 million won are exported to the United States and Japan and the others are distributed to the domestic market.

△ the Outside of HYUNHAE SUSAN and HYUNHAE Culture

Flatfish managed in a healthier way because it is raised by Jeju lava seawater

HYUNHAE SUSAN is one of 14 culturing companies in Healthier Fisheries Association Corporation with a brand of ‘Lava Seawater Flatfish’. As Lava Seawater Flatfish is a flatfish brand mainly created by the second generation of farms which have specialized in raising flatfish in Jeju for more than 20 years over 2 generations, it aims to produce and supply only healthy and delicious flatfish with top-class sanitary control and strictly-selected high-quality feed as well as strict breeding management. The brand of Lava Seawater Flatfish was selected as the 2020 Jeju Flatfish Overhauling Excellent Brand Promotion Support Project for and was awarded the Minister Prize from Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

“As Lava Seawater Flatfish uses lava seawater with constant water temperature of 17℃ the whole year, it can raise flatfish without putting stress on it due to few daily or seasonal fluctuations or few physical property changes. As lava seawater passing through volcanic bedrock layers undergoes a natural filtering process, it contains no toxic substances such as mercury, cadmium, etc. as well as several pathogenes, ammonia nitrogen and phenols, so it is clean. And, it is rich in functional mineral components including magnesium, calcium, etc., so flatfish can grow healthy.”

In addition, HYUNHAE SUSAN is both a farm certified with HACCP and a company participating in the Seafood Traceability System. Furthermore, it was recognized for its perfect food safety and quality by additionally getting the K․FISH certification ealier this year.

△ Panorama of Farms in HYUNHAE SUSAN and Lava Seawater Flatfish with K․FISH Certification

Constant Efforts for Improving Safety and Quality

The reason why HYUNHAE SUSAN has continuously acquired all kinds of strict certifications is that the director SANGHOON HYUN puts safety and quality ahead of everything in a process of raising flatfish. He said that he returned home 16 years ago, when antibiotics for farmed flatfish were widely misused and abused. He has devoted himself to quality homogenization by establishing a quality control process and removing harmful factors.

“We have pursued safety and high-quality from the past, which is our differentiated point. We have severely controlled everything from seeds to drugs, manpower and mortality management and removed harmful factors, which has naturally homogenized flatfish with outstanding quality. In addition, we minimize growth stress as much as possible by reducing high density. If any farm puts 1,000 flatfish in one water tank, we put about 7~80% of them to keep the good environment.”

△ Signboard certified with HACCP Farm and Signboard for the brand, Lava Seawater Flatfish

He calls flatfish from HYUNHAE SUSAN ‘managed flatfish’. Unlike wild flatfish that consumers cannot know where it is raised and what it eats, they can check out the whole process of cultured flatfish in HYUNHAE SUSAN from how it is raised and what it eats, how its weight is changed, where it is distributed to how it is consumed. In his opinion, nothing can give consumers much trust than transparent information.

Plan to Extend the Overseas Market with K·FISH Certification

It is in the same vein that he got the strict K․FISH certification. He explains that for a producer, it is difficult to pioneer and extend an export market, so the K․FISH certification, the national certification system, seemed to be effective as a factor to improve the reliability of overseas buyers and make them find marines products in South Korea. He aims to attract customers in the global market by widening reliability from the country to the foreign countries.

“Finally, the K·FISH certification is an effort to develop the export market. After witnessing that the export markets for processed food have been expanded by laver, I thought that we had to get the certification as soon as possible. We have a long way to go, but I think we will improve marketability quickly as long as we start to process flatfish in the future. We will spread the superiority of Jeju Lava Seawater Flatfish by expanding the export market to China and Vietnam and adding fillet made by processing flatfish in the product family.”

△ CI of HYUNHAE SUSAN or Lava Seawater Flatfish

▷ Address : 40, Sincheonseo-ro 50beon-gil, Seongsan-eup, Seogwipo-si, Jeju-do, Republic of Korea (411, Sincheon-ri)
▷ Contact No. : Tel. 064-787-2133    Fax. 064-722-2070
▷ E-mail :okhyunjj@naver.com
▷ Homepage : In the making