A Word on our Show Wins

from Joe Zuritsky, President of Quality Koi Co., Inc.

September 26, 2011

We thank our loyal customers for their faith in our farm and in the koi we produce there. But especially for buying and showing the two great koi that were picked as Grand Champions on Saturday, September 24 at the MAKC’s Koi America show in Maryland and the Rainbow River koi show in Florida.

This last weekend was the culmination of a dream we at Quality Koi Co. have had since starting the Nisei Koi Farm in 2001, which was winning Grand Championships in koi shows in the U.S. against imported Japanese koi with our own U.S.-produced koi.

 Our plan was to create a koi-production farm using high-quality imported Japanese parents that could produce real U.S.-bred tategoi for us to sell here. The skills and knowledge of Mat McCann, Jen, and myself amount to over 85 collective years of work and study of the art of keeping koi, and in the last decade, producing and selling high-quality koi on a commercial basis.

 To be honest, if I would have known in advance how difficult this business would be, I’d have never entered into it. But since I had already bought and sold koi as a hobbyist dealer and, in my backyard, successfully bred and raised hundreds of baby koi from a spawning, I clearly simplified the difficulty of the project. So, after recruiting Mat from England and Jen from the NJ Aquarium, we all rather naively took the plunge together.

 The first decade caused us to endure a long, painful and expensive learning curve that had us, at times, doubting we would ever achieve a profitable business. But, Mat, Jen and I persevered and finally the good genetics of our breeders and hard work have finally begun to pay off with our great number of impressive wins in the last four (4) koi shows.

To keep things in perspective, I have to keep reminding myself that it took over 200 years for the Japanese to develop their koi production to where it is today. So, even with our advantage of using their best breeding stock, ten years is not such an outrageous period for us to nearly catch up by beating some of their high-end koi here in the U.S. koi shows. Thank you all for your confidence in us and your patronage.

 Very truly,

 Joe Zuritsky