Frozen Tilapia & Pangasius (Whole and Fillets)

Farmed whitefish whole round, gutted and as IQF fillets by size and glaze

Tilapia and pangasius are the two farmed whitefish that fill the frozen retail cabinet from Riyadh to Lagos, and they are bought in three presentations. Whole round and gutted tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus, HS 0303.23) is graded by piece weight - 200-300 g, 300-500 g, 500-800 g and 800 g-up - and IQF (individually quick frozen) so each fish comes free of the carton; pangasius (Pangasius hypophthalmus, HS 0303.24), farmed in the Mekong delta, is mostly sold as skinless, boneless fillets (HS 0304.62) in 120-170 g, 170-220 g and 220 g-up sizes, well trimmed or untrimmed, and colour graded white, light pink or yellow with white at the top of the range. Tilapia fillets (HS 0304.61) follow the same pattern in 3-5 oz, 5-7 oz and 7-9 oz. Glaze is the specification that decides the real price: pangasius fillets are sold at anything from 10% to 40% glaze, and moisture retention treatment with phosphates (STPP) is declared as a percentage, so an offer at 80% net weight and one at 90% net weight are not the same product per kilo of fish. Core temperature is -18°C or colder, and the packing is 10 kg cartons (1 kg or 5 kg inner bags for retail) or 5 x 2 kg for foodservice. UN Comtrade 2025 export declarations under HS 0303 put India at 345k MT at an average USD 1,754/MT and Indonesia at 341k MT at USD 2,113 across all frozen fish; the pangasius trade sits mostly under HS 0304 fillets and is read in Vietnamese customs data rather than the frozen whole-fish line.

The buyer is a retail chain, a foodservice distributor or a wholesale importer in the Gulf, Egypt, East and West Africa or Pakistan, and it specifies the presentation, the size, the glaze and net weight, and increasingly the farm certification - ASC, BAP or GlobalG.A.P. - alongside the halal certificate. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers frozen tilapia and pangasius from Vietnamese, Chinese, Indonesian, Egyptian and Indian farms and processing plants against the plant's competent-authority health certificate, a certificate of analysis for moisture, phosphate and net weight, and a surveyor's check of size grade, glaze and core temperature at stuffing. Every lot is finfish, species-declared and certifiable as halal by the destination's accepted certifier; CBIL does not broker shrimp, prawn, crab, lobster, squid, octopus, cuttlefish or clams, so the plants we work with pack finfish lines for these lots and the container holds no other species. Cargo moves in 40-ft high-cube reefer containers of about 25-27 MT at -18°C or colder on FOB, CFR and CIF terms, with reefer freight quoted through the lines and forwarders; this is not a chartering trade and LaycanDesk, our chartering desk, does not come into it. Send the presentation, size grade, net weight basis, treatment declaration and discharge port and we will work an offer per net kilo to it.