Dealer’s perception towards aqua feeds-A case study of avanti feeds limited, Kovvur, West Godavari Dt. of Andhra Pradesh

Indian climate conditions are very much suitable for the development of aquaculture. Countries like the U.S.A., Japan and other European countries consume more aqua foods but they don’t have proper climatic conditions to adopt this culture, compared to countries like India, Taiwan and Thailand [1-4]. So the exports of aqua food are from these countries, the U.S.A. and Japan. Among these countries, India is the best in adopting this type of culture. To adopt this culture proper feed must be available in doing aquaculture. Feed occupies 60% of the cost of doing this type of culture [5,6].


Introduction
Indian climate conditions are very much suitable for the development of aquaculture. Countries like the U.S.A., Japan and other European countries consume more aqua foods but they don't have proper climatic conditions to adopt this culture, compared to countries like India, Taiwan and Thailand [1][2][3][4]. So the exports of aqua food are from these countries, the U.S.A. and Japan. Among these countries, India is the best in adopting this type of culture. To adopt this culture proper feed must be available in doing aquaculture. Feed occupies 60% of the cost of doing this type of culture [5,6].
In the beginning, farmers faced many types of problems to do this culture due to lack of proper feed that is unavailable in India. The feed is imported from other countries like Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines. Because of these countries are well developed than it but the feed that which is imported from their countries used to take for about 6 months and during these posses, the quality of the feed used to decline slowly. Microalgae are more nutritious than the traditional sources of animal and aquatic feed like millet, grams and other small fi shes in terms of its protein, omega 3 fatty acids and carotenoids content. Microalgae can be next alternate source for animal and aquatic feed production in an environmentally sustainable and economically advantageous manner [7].
The feed industries slowly started in India in the early 90s collaborating with East Asian countries. The fi rst feed company was set up at Nellore in AP named as "Water Base" is the year 1992 the feed industries started developing very well in India because of high cultures.

Aqua-feed industries in Andhra Pradesh and India
In India, the fi rst feed company was in Andhra Pradesh  Gujarat, in Bharat with a capability of 4,00,000 MT per annum.

Sample size
The sample size chosen was 200 dealers from West-East Godavari region. Therefore the percentage of the sample size chosen is taken as 100%.

Basic problems of the aqua industry
Nowadays, the aqua industry is facing various types of problems. The countries consuming seafood from India are from Japan (60%), U.S.A. (20%) and European Countries (20%) later these countries consumption slowly started declining conditions, terrorism problem and due to this the export of started reducing. The above factors made aquaculture to decline and it is directly proportionate to the aquafeed industries.

The problem of materials
The company was mainly based upon raw materials feed generally contains nearly 40 types or raw materials. In these 40 types, 83% of raw materials are imported from different countries among this 83% of raw materials 60% of the value is occupied by the feed and 17% of raw materials are developed in India. Despite facing many problems in importing they are unable to manufacture in our country.

Present profi le
At present, there are seven major units & some units located in India by the private sector with an installed capacity of 3 lakh tonnes. The companies are well organized & well equipped. All companies collaborate with East Asian Countries. The technology & raw materials are imported from these countries. In India, the Industries are located in 3 states like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamilnadu. The feed to some extent is imported from Taiwan, Thailand and East Asian Countries according to the culture with the 3 above said varieties of feeds.

Review of literature
Carbohydrates are a unit the smallest amount overpriced style of dietary energy and area unit oftentimes used for supermolecule frugal in developed diets. Fish and shrimp vary in their ability to digest sugar effectively [8]. The utilization of dietary sugar has additionally been found to vary with the complexness or chemical structure of the sugar supply used. Channel catfi sh (Ictalurus punctatus) and Kuruma shrimp (Penaeus japonicus) seem to utilize advanced carbohydrates additional promptly than straightforward sugars [9] The ability of carnivorous fi sh species to change or digest advanced sugar is restricted because of the weak chemical change activity in their canal, thus for species such as trout, starch digestion decreases as the proportion of dietary starch is increased. By the application of salmonids, carbohydrate digestibility will also weaken with growing molecular weight [10,11]. In a study published it was identifi ed the major market competitors for aqua feed business were Avanthi (38%) and CP (31%). The aqua dealers have reported CP (39%) and Avanthi (26%) as best feed brands in Andhra Pradesh also majority (71%) of the aqua dealers were engaged in both cash and credit mode of business and maintained an average profi t margin of 10% while expecting a minimum of 40% protein in the aquafeeds for better business [12].
In general, heat water all-devouring or saprozoic fi sh species like common carp, channel catfi sh and eel are more tolerant of high dietary carbohydrate levels. Furuichi and Yone compared the use of carbohydrates by common carp, red sea bream, and yellowtail [13,14]. Growth retardation and low feed effi ciency were noticed in common carp fed diets containing over 40% Dextrin, red sea bream fed over 30% Dextrin, and yellowtail fed over 20% Dextrin [15,16]. Studies of common carp and Ictalurus punctatus [17] have shown that sugar levels up to concerning twenty-fi fth of the diet area unit utilised as effectively as lipids and carbohydrates as an energy sources [18][19][20].

Research methodology
The research has chosen and designed the research in such a way to explore the factors involved in the problem and was further conducted research to describe the relationship between the factors explore on the given problem. By applying the theoretical models and the related statistical tools, the data collected by the researcher in the form of primary and secondary data, the hypothesis were tested and arrived at certain conclusions on the problem given. So, the present study mainly adopted the descriptive research design and party exploratory research design in attempts to provide suitable solutions to the problem chosen in the study.

Statistical approach
The role of statistics in research is to furnish as a tool designing research analyzing its data and drawing conclusions therefrom. As every individual knows that any research worker cannot ignore the science of statistics. Tools used are as follows:

Percentage calculation
The percentage method was used in processing the data bar charts and pie-diagrams were used to explain tabulation clearly.

Primary data
The data, which is collected freshly, for a specifi c purpose in hand and thus, happen to be original in character and is referred to be the primary data. The collection of primary data for business research is of paramount importance to assist management in marketing decisions.

Secondary data
In this paper, the secondary data was collected mainly from company records, trade journals, internal sales reports, theoretical textbooks, industry-related web sites and newspapers.
This research has been based on both the primary and secondary data.

Data collection methods
Questionnaire: The questionnaire technique of statistics collection is relatively prevalent and it contains several questions printed/typed in a certain order on a form or set of forms. Care was taken in the main aspect as general form, questions sequence, question formulation and wording. The study was associated with both open and close-ended questions. The free-response was invited from respondents. Before using this direct method of personal and telephone interview with a large sample "pilot study" was conducted.
Pilot survey: As it is advisable to conduct "a pilot study" for the testing questionnaire, few respondents were taken from the total sample. The pilot survey is an infant the "Replica and Rehearsal of the main survey". This brings into the weakness of the questionnaire. Thus certain changes were in the questionnaire concerning the study.

Sampling method
Non-probability sampling: Non-probability sampling procedure which does not provides any basis for estimating the probability that each item in the population possesses to be included in the sample. In such a case, the sampling error is not measurable and the error in the estimator tends to increase sharply because the representativeness of the sample members is questionable.

Convenience sampling:
In this method, we have no way of determining the representativeness of the sample. This may result in biased estimation. This procedure is widely suitable in analysis of survey etc. The convenience sampling technique is comprehensively applied in marketing studies.

Data analysis and elucidation:
The present study is about the perception of dealers those who are engaged in Aqua Business. First-hand information has been collected and elucidated by using various statistical tools. Dealers' dealing period with aqua products has been presented in the following Table 2.
Dealers dealing period with aqua products are shown in Table 2. 60% dealers are dealing with aqua feed for 5 years, 15% dealers are dealing for more than 4 years, 8% dealers are dealing for more than 3 years, 12% dealers are dealing for more than 2 years and 5% dealers are dealing from less than 2 years with the aquafeed. From the above table, it was obvious, that most of the dealers are doing aqua feed business for more than 5 years. The competitors for Avanti Aqua Feeds Ltd have been projected in the following Table 3.  Table 5.
From the above information, it can be understood that the major demanding products in the market are the Avanti company products, hence it can be concluded that Avanti Products are occupying the major market share. In Table 6 Table 7.
From Table 7, it is clear that comparatively, Avanti prices are lower than other company feed prices.
The opinion of dealers on the delivery system of Avanti Feeds Limited was taken with total respondents as 200, 57% of dealers are satisfi ed with Avanti delivery system (responded within a day), 35% of dealers are the moderate opinion (responded 1-2 days), on Avanti delivery system and 8% of dealers are not much satisfi ed with the Avanti delivery system (responded after 2 days). Dealers' feeling the distribution is good and order processing is also good.
Quantity of bags preferred by farmers on every purchase of a product was taken with total respondents as 200. It is evident that 70% (respondents 140) of the farmers are buying 25Kg bags and whereas the remaining 30% (respondents 60) of farmers are buying 10Kg bags.
Sales promotional techniques adopted by the company to promote the sales were obtained with total respondents as 200. 25% dealers respondent to personal selling offered by the company (respondents 50), 30% dealers respondent to sales promotion offered by the company (respondents 60), 22% dealers respondent to advertising (respondents 44), 15% dealers respondent to publicity (respondents 30) and 8% dealers responded to other activities (respondents 16). Most of the dealers are responded to sales promotion and personal selling after that advertising and publicity.

Summary, observations and suggestions
The study focuses on dealer's perception towards the Avanti Feeds by focusing on different factors, which infl uence      Table 8.

Limitations of the study
1. Time is a major constraint, conducts surveys with all the dealers is not possible within a short period.
2. There is a possibility for giving biased answers from the dealers and farmers to promote their brand of product.
3. The topic is wide and narrow, which requires great attention to complete in a short period.
4. The sample size is less, which may restrict the researcher to generalize the fi ndings to the entire population.
5. Because of the fast-changing marketing environment, the analysis may not hold good for a long time. Water base is another main Competitor rest of them is not to be considered as main competitors 3 Shrimp farming sector is badly affected by viral diseases The quality in the fed and profi t margin offering by the company is mainly attracting the dealers to deal with Avanti Feeds Limited 4 The company should focus more attention on informing the farmers with latest technology development to control virus diseases Comparatively, Avanti Feeds prices are lower than any other company feed prices 5 More technical awareness has to create among the farmers about the usage of feed property By the experience of the dealers, it was found that the farmers are purchasing the Avanti Feeds due to its quality, freshness and appearance 6 The company should conduct programs for the farmers on shrimp culture and feed importance. It also acts as publicity Avanti is maintaining a good distribution system. The company is taking care of delivering the order to dealers within time 7 Advertising is a major tool to attract customers. Avanti has not done much and has to pay more attention to advertising Dealers are showing interest in sales promotion than that of advertising by maintaining good relations and proper delivery 8 In packing the feed, paper liner bags should be used to preserve the quality, freshness of feed and water stability Rather than 10Kg bags, 25Kg bags are having more demand from Avanti Feeds 9 Avanti has a good brand image in the aquafeed market, it has to sustain its image in future as well Number of dealers is having the opinion that Avanti is maintaining very good quality feeds 10 In the case of the profi t margin, the company should satisfy the dealers then that of competitors Company is providing promotional tools to dealers attracting more attention from the dealers 11 Encourage the dealers to increase the sales by giving them additional incentives Maximum percentages of dealers are satisfi ed with the profi t margin offered by the company 12 The company can give cash discounts on big orders and more commission concerning their sales with other dealers