Rising prices impact sales of popular ikan terubok masin in Kuching

KUCHING: Gone are the days when the famous ikan terubok masin was an affordable staple at the fish market, easily bought by locals and tourists alike to take home and enjoy.

Nowadays, the fish can be found all over the Kuching and other places across Sarawak. Even in the Peninsular, the ikan terubok masin can be found and easily bought by customers there.

However, it is still a struggle for most of the sellers to find customers as the price of the fish significantly increased each year.

At Medan Niaga Satok, Hamdini Peleh has been in the ikan terubok masin business for about 20 years and he lamented about the fewer customers buying the fish.

He said the price is increasing each year because the fish is not a controlled item.

“The authorities does not have control over the fish and the price is set by the suppliers. So it really happen, and it will increase.

“All of us here are just selling the fish according to daily needs. If the supplier have the stock, we will order from them.

“Even though we sell the fish, by the end of the day, we don’t keep the fish,” said the 44-year-old.

He said that in the past, during holidays or school holidays, they would received orders from customers to pack up the fish in the boxes to be sent to homes or purchase on the spot.

As the years go by, there are fewer customers ordering from fish stalls.

“There’s usually people coming by the market but there’s not a lot of customers now. Even in the weekend, not many people are around.

“Maybe because there are other places that sells ikan terubok masin around Kuching and even in the Peninsular but more expensive.

“What it used to be was, like one of my regular customers from the Peninsular, would buy from my stall.

“But with flight tickets to Sarawak including miscellaneous items, they would spend more than RM1,000.”

Ikan terubok masin is still a hot item, said Hamdini, but customers would need to think twice before purchasing.

He added that the price of the fish doubled after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We used to have a capital of about RM500 to be able to order the fish and sell them.

“Currently, the capital we need to have to sell this fish is about RM700 to RM1,000 or even more if we include our own items like the plastic bags, boxes, polystyrene, salaries and others.

“We can take 50 per cent of the sale’s profit before, but this time, we wouldn’t even want to take even 30 per cent of the profit.

“Of course in this line of business, there’s ups and downs,” he said.

“But we’re holding on to this business because this is the only work we’ve known throughout our life. We’ll manage ourselves.

“As for me, if this work is not going well in the future, with the increased price and no salary increase, I would just retire and look for other opportunities at other places.”