GOOD QUALITY: (from left) Don Don and Ling showing their processed shark fins.
SIBU: The sea cucumber business is labour intensive and time consuming but the final product is something most Chinese restaurants would pay handsomely for.
Don Don Ecia from the Philippines has been involved in the sea cucumber business for 27 years and learned the necessary processing technique from his father.
“Before coming to Sibu, I was in Sabah where my father had a sea cucumber business. I have been involved in the sea cucumber processing business for over 20 years, so I know much about sea cucumbers,” he said.
SUN DRY: A worker drying the sea cucumbers outside Don Don’s factory.
HARD WORK: A worker cleaning the sea cucumbers for the next step behind the factory.
He came to Sibu in 2008 and started a sea cucumber business in partnership with Kenny Ling.
Don Don, who speaks both Malay and Tagalog, said he knows two ways to process sea cucumber.
One of the ways is to boil the sea cucumber for 15 minutes when it is brought in fresh from the sea.
Then, it is kept in salt for about six hours.
Once the time is up, it is brought to boil again, and then smoked till dry. The smoked sea cucumber is then put under the sun to further dry it.
The other method is to keep the sea cucumber in salt for three to four days immediately after it is brought in from the sea.
After that, it is boiled for about an hour before being put under the sun to dry.
Don Don said the process would cause the sea cucumbers to become hard as a stone.
“It’s then ready to be sent to the market,” he added.
According to Don Don, the dried sea cucumber can last for longer periods of time compared to the wet sea cucumber.
He said the sun-dried sea cucumber would have to be reprocessed again to be able to be marketed to restaurants.
That process alone takes five days.
“The sun dried sea cucumber has to be boiled three times before it is soak in cold water for five days. When it becomes soft, it is ready,” he said.
He said sea cucumbers were expensive because of the process that was needed before the sea produce could be consumed.
He also said there were 36 kinds of sea cucumber and they all tasted different.
“To me, only 21 kinds taste good and the rest are not so good, some are bitter, or tasteless,” he said.
He said knowing the different types of sea cucumber were important when it came to business. Don Don said he was not in this business just for the money, but also as a service to the customers.
“Some people in the business only care about earning money, but not me. I want my customers to get what they want, and want what they get,” he said.