The Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), Vijayawada, held the regional-level olympiad on preparing value-added seafood products at Pamarru in Krishna district on Thursday (June 18, 2026).

Competitors selected in the State-level olympiads held in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal took part in the competitions at Sandhya Aqua Exports at Pamarru, MPEDA Assistant Director (Vijayawada Regional Division) R. Prasad Naik said.

MPEDA Joint Director (Export Promotion), Chennai, A. Jeyabal said about 5,000 persons, many of them women, had been trained in making value-added seafood products across the country.

“The women were trained in making different varieties of value added products made of fish, shrimp and squid, which have high demand in the international market,” Mr. Jeyabal said.

AP Fisheries University Officer on Special Duty (OSD) T. Suguna, who attended the programme, said skills in making value-added seafood products needed to be improved.

Later, Sandhya Aqua Exports Assistant General Manager M. Aditya, MPEDA Junior Technical Officer (Research and Development) Iyyappan, and officers from the ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT), the National Institute of Fisheries Post Harvest Technology and Training (NIFPHATT), Visakhapatnam, and NETFISH distributed the prizes.

V. Prakash Naik of Andhra Pradesh, Barsarani Jena of Bhubaneswar, P. Surya Bhaskar of Andhra Pradesh, Muthu Kumaran of Tamil Nadu and Sagarika Sardar of West Bengal took the top five places, Deputy Director (Fisheries) A. Usha Kiran said.

“The winners will participate in the Seafood Expo Bharat, to be held from July 1 to 3, at Chennai Trade Centre,” B. Koteswar of NIFPHATT said.