1st Dec 2017 by brandsa2018

Seafood a Ferguson family affair

As a third-generation member of a South Australian seafood family, Eliza Ferguson spent her childhood aboard vessels reeling in some of the state’s most prized species.

Some 20 years later and the daughter of Ferguson Australia Group founder Andrew Ferguson has now dedicated her working life to being the face of the company and its speciality – southern rock lobsters.

“As the saying goes, it (seafood) runs in your blood,” says Eliza, Ferguson’s export and marketing manager.

“I spent my childhood on and off fishing boats for one to two weeks at a time until the age of about 12.

“We had such an amazing childhood.”

It’s no small catch! Eliza with a southern rock lobster.

Eliza works alongside seven of her family members including parents Andrew and Debra, who founded the brand in 2003.

Her grandfather Robert had been a commercial southern rock lobster fisherman in the South East since the late 1960s.

Ferguson Australia is now a respected southern rock lobster and scale fish supplier, with its own fishing fleet, export interests and domestic retail avenues.

It is also a major exporter of southern rock lobster to China.

Earlier in 2017 Ferguson became the first fishery in Australia and the third in the world to gain a prestigious sustainability certification for the shellfish species.

The company was also the world’s first to achieve the Friend of the Sea certification for six other seafood species.

Fishing is a hard day’s work, lifting nets and battling sea swells.

Ferguson’s headquarters is based at Hendon, Adelaide, while it has processing facilities in Port MacDonnell, Port Lincoln and Kangaroo Island.

Among its most recent pursuits is the launch of cooked frozen southern rock lobsters in Foodland supermarkets in time for Christmas.

“This year we have given people the opportunity to buy lobster at a reasonable price ($69 each) and they are guaranteed a high-quality product,” Eliza says.

“We want people to enjoy lobster more than once in a blue moon.”

The cooked frozen southern rock lobster is available at Foodland.

The boxed, cooked frozen southern rock lobsters follow a separate range of frozen fish which was relaunched in November, 2016.

The 200g range includes seven local fish species; flathead, King George whiting, Coorong mullet, gummy shark, southern garfish, Bight redfish (red snapper), and ocean jacket and is available at all SA Foodlands.

It also includes commercial scallop meat from Tasmania.

“The range was around before but with different packaging and it was only available at two Foodlands,” Eliza says.

“We have been so supported by Foodland and the consumers, they love to see our products and they trust the quality.”

Eliza says Ferguson wanted to rebuild frozen seafood’s reputation for being of a lower quality compared to fresh fish.

“Frozen fish has a bad reputation and that’s what we are trying to change,” she says.

“We have picked species that are iconic to SA and freeze well.”

The fish are caught in SA waters by a pool of about 100 local fishers.

The Ferguson family (from left) Kate, Andrew, Debra, Will and Eliza.

Kangaroo Island resident Jason Stevens is Ferguson’s factory manager at the Kingscote facility on Kangaroo Island.

It’s his job to liaise with the fishers who bring in the day’s catch ready to be filleted, frozen and packaged for sale.

“We have to be made available for the fishers at any one time,” he says.

Jason has worked with Ferguson for the past seven years and has previous experience working on an oyster farm on the island.

If he’s not processing scale fish or southern rock lobster he’s showing fish fanatics how its done aboard his fishing charter, Tory M Fishing Charters.

“It’s nice and peaceful here,” Jason adds.

28th Nov 2017 by brandsa2018

Port Lincoln’s southern bluefin tuna is nation’s greatest seafood success story

Ask South Australian seafood industry spokesman Brian Jeffriess AM to describe the taste of a high quality southern bluefin tuna (SBT) and he struggles to find the words.

“It’s a spiritual experience – it’s that good,” he says.

After 30 years in Port Lincoln’s SBT industry, Brian’s fascination with the saltwater giants is yet to wear off and probably never will.

“Tuna must move one body length – an average of one metre – per second for 24 hours a day to wash enough oxygen over their gills to survive,” says the CEO of the Australian SBT Industry Association.

“It’s a very robust fish and we are lucky enough to have a top-class product here in SA.”

Brian Jeffriess, left, has been in the southern bluefin tuna industry for 30 years, watching the industry become a national success story.

SBT is SA’s largest single aquaculture product, with an overseas export worth $126m.

As the Eyre Peninsula’s most renowned seafood product, SBT is a large, red fleshed, sashimi grade fish that is highly sought after by the Japanese market.

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the Port Lincoln industry, which almost collapsed in the 1980s when the wild catch quota was cut by nearly 70%.

This caused major industry disruption, sending several local fisherman into receivership.

In 1988 Brian, a commodities specialist, was brought in to head the SBT Tuna Industry Association to help turn the fortunes around.

Southern bluefin tuna is a premium product on the Japanese sashimi market.

He came with vast business experience including various roles within the Department of Trade and Industry in Canberra, the OECD in Paris, and Mitsubishi Motors.

“In 1989 we decided to try this dream idea of tuna farming, no one had done it in the world but it was either that or bankruptcy,” Brian says.

“People never thought it would work, but there’s something in the DNA of Port Lincoln …”

SBT farming began in 1991 and was pioneered by first generation immigrants – most notably late Croatian Dinko Lukin.

Their innovative inventions saved the seaside town.

Southern bluefin tuna farm pontoons off Port Lincoln.

Now SBT is farmed by fishers who travel out to the Great Australian Bight and catch the species in a purse seine (net).

The fish are then carefully towed to ranching pontoons off Port Lincoln and fed sardines to aid further growth.

The sardine catch used to feed the tuna is the largest tonnage fishery in Australia.

“When the tuna are captured in the wild they weigh about 17kg each … they are towed to the pontoon over 15 days at one knot,” Brian says.

“The tuna mortality rate used to be 14% and now it’s only 1%.

“We taught the rest of the world to do it and we’ve gradually refined the process over the past 20 years.”

Once grown, 90% of the harvested tuna is frozen, while the other 10% is chilled and airfreighted.

Tuna rosettes at the Port Lincoln Hotel.

While more than 90% of SA’s SBT is exported to Japan, Brian says the domestic market is growing.

“The overall tuna industry is worth $400m and that’s understating it,” he says.

“The footprint of the industry on the Eyre Peninsula surprises even me.”

Living in Adelaide and travelling to Port Lincoln weekly, Brian was awarded Member of the Order of Australia for his contribution to the fishing and aquaculture industries.

He says there’s no better place to enjoy the fruits of the sea than the Eyre Peninsula.

“The whole natural environment, the beauty of the place and the climate is superb,” Brian says.

“Adelaide and Port Lincoln are very rare places in the world, there’s nothing in any European city like them.

“It’s as good as it gets.”

22nd Nov 2017 by brandsa2018

Inside the life of SA’s veteran abalone diver

It’s cold, there’s no other boat in sight, and you’re battling swells 18m below the ocean.

For 63-year-old veteran wild catch abalone diver, Rex Bichard, this has been an ordinary day at work for 40 years.

The Port Lincoln local, who is the South Australian abalone industry’s oldest diver, spends seven hours a day prising the underwater delicacies from rocks in the seas off the state’s West Coast.

“It’s a different world down there,” he says.

“You’re in your own mind all day, but on the flip side, you don’t have to see anyone and you’re the boss.”

More than 600 tonnes of abalone – prized by fine restaurants and Asian countries – are produced in SA each year and exported globally.

Generating $22m for the state, it’s one of SA’s most lucrative seafood markets.

Rex with his abalone ‘iron’ and wearing his chain mail suit, which protects from shark bites.

Rex dives 12-18m into the deep, cold waters to collect three abalone species; greenlip, blacklip and roei.

Wearing a heavy, stainless steel chain mail suit, to protect from shark bites and keep him on the ocean floor, he uses an abalone ‘iron’ to lift the shellfish from the rocks.

Once collected in his bag, the catch is parachuted to the surface and collected by Rex’s on-deck sheller and brother-in-law Darryl Carrison.

Aside from shucking and icing the abalone meat, Darryl is also responsible for operating the boat.

“We never use an anchor, so the sheller follows the diver’s every move,” Rex says.

“The sheller always has to pay attention.”

Adhering to annual catch quotas, Rex says 150kg of abalone meat is a “good day” at sea.

His catches are delivered to Port Lincoln co-operative Western Abalone which exports mainly to Asian markets while the rest is sent to high-end Australian restaurants.

“Abalone is like a snail that moves around and forages for food,” Rex says.

“They strike on (the rock) with about 300 pounds of pressure per square inch so hopefully you get them before they latch down hard.”

Rex’s love for seafood has been inherited by his two daughters, Amanda and Nicole, who are active in the abalone industry.

Abalone dishes are prized by fine restaurants in Australian capital cities and in Asia.

Abalone dishes are highly valued by fine restaurants in Australian capital cities and in Asia.

After countless hours in the ocean, Rex has found “not much treasure but some peculiar fish”.

Among those less peculiar and more fearsome is one of the ocean’s top predators – the great white shark.

Over the years Rex has been in the underwater path of four of them and knew friends who lost their lives to the notorious species.

“They are a wild card and always a worry,” he says.

“The key is to never turn your back on them, it’s all in the body language.”

Rex, originally from the UK, settled in Port Lincoln as a young boy in the 1960s.

After completing an economics degree and becoming an accountant for a year, he decided his “heart wasn’t in it”.

“I got a job as an abalone sheller in 1975 and I’ve been in the game ever since,” he says.

“Port Lincoln is a great place to live and when I work I like to be by myself.

“I don’t see another boat on the horizon.”

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13th Nov 2017 by brandsa2018

Fishing for freshness in Australia’s seafood capital

Port Lincoln’s Lana Harvey knows a fresh fish when she sees one.

It’s all in the eyes, she says.

“You can tell by the look of their eyes, that’s a pretty easy tell-tale sign,” says the Fresh Fish Place’s wholesale logistics manager.

But quality is a given where Lana works – Port Lincoln, the country’s seafood capital and home to the largest fishing fleet in the Southern Hemisphere.

When a diner in a high-end Sydney restaurant is sliding their fork through a King George whiting, it’s possible that same fish was selected by Lana just 24 hours earlier.

The Fresh Fish Place's Lana Harvey is responsible for selecting high-quality premium seafood for distribution across Australia.

The Fresh Fish Place’s Lana Harvey with a Spencer Gulf hiramasa kingfish.

Lana is The Fresh Fish Place’s go-to woman for finding high-grade, wild caught and farmed seafood and selling it onto five star restaurants and even celebrity chefs.

When a professional fisherman arrives at the Port Lincoln factory, Lana is ready to survey the quality of the catch.

“When I see something good come through the doors, that is exciting,” she says.

“When a car pulls up I’m straight outside and when it’s quality I’m straight on the phone and I can’t wait to get it to destinations all over Australia.

“The quality speaks for itself and sells itself.”

The family-owned Fresh Fish Place is the Eyre Peninsula’s largest seafood supplier, with a throughput of about 200 tonnes of seafood annually.

Species include deep-sea flathead, southern garfish, King George whiting, Spencer Gulf hiramasa kingfish, queen snapper, gummy shark and bluefin tuna.

The Fresh Fish Place includes a factory direct seafood outlet and fish café.

Other marine species include Coffin Bay, Franklin Harbour and Smokey Bay oysters, Bass Strait scallops, Port Lincoln black mussels, Coffin Bay sand crabs, and southern calamari.

The seafood is supplied to hotels, restaurants, fish shops and supermarkets.

Port Lincoln born Lana says The Fresh Fish Place struggles to keep up with demand for supply, as South Australian seafood continues to be recognised as world class.

Every fish that comes through the doors must meet strict sustainability criteria, including size limits.

“When we are receiving fish we are required to check sizes and if it’s undersized we are required to report it,” Lana says.

“For the commercial fishery, quotas also help with maintaining our sustainable fishing industry.”

Lana says seafood quality is maintained from the moment the fish is hooked by the fisherman.

The Fresh Fish Place is home to 27 employees and has a throughput of about 200 tonnes of seafood every year.

“The moment the fish is caught to the moment it’s cooked and ready to put on your plate, it must be kept at temperature, generally 5C or under is ideal.”

“We absolutely have some of the best seafood in the world and the way that it’s managed is brilliant.”

The Fresh Fish Place is also a factory direct seafood outlet and fish café, attracting 40,000 customers every year.

With 50% of the customers being visitors, the fish café is a popular spot to enjoy a pan fried or battered fish shortly after its been filleted straight off the production table.

Along with public tours of the factory, The Fresh Fish Place also incorporates the Port Lincoln Seafood Cooking School which brings together the culinary profession and seafood marketers.

One of 27 Fresh Fish Place employees, Lana says she’s proud to be a part of the SA seafood industry, a sector responsible for 2300 direct jobs.

“Port Lincoln is the seafood capital of Australia and it shows in the quality of the seafood that comes out of the region,” she says.

“We have beautiful clean waters and a huge, naturally deep harbour – it’s a beautiful fishing environment.”

Lana Harvey is an I Choose SA for Seafood ambassador. Listen to her story below.