FISHING FOR FUTURE
A sustainable, artisan fishing company is seeking to convince Kiwi restaurants and seafood eaters to expand their horizons.
Artisan fishing with Awatoru, plus a boutique heritage stay in Christchurch.
For fishing to become more sustainable as an industry and for species stock to be bountiful for generations to come, we might all have to get a little more adventurous with our eating. Although the idea is slowly catching on, for the past decade, Scott McNeil, founder of Kāpiti Coast-based Awatoru, an artisan fishing and wild-food supply company, has been chipping away behind the scenes, supplying some of the country’s top restaurants with sustainable
“WHAT I CATCH IS ON A TINY SCALE – IT’S ALL LINE CAUGHT.” SCOTT McNEIL
alternatives to the fish we’re used to seeing served up at restaurants. Over summer, you’ll find the small-scale fisherman out on his boat, singlehandedly tracking down and reeling in albacore tuna and kahawai. He also supplies paddle crabs – the product that kick-started McNeil’s business – foraged seaweed, and wild venison.
“We use only methods that are deemed to be clean, efficient and with no by-catch,” says McNeil of his fishing operation. Awatoru also works with other small-scale fishers, but McNeil is clear: “We’ve got no room for practices that aren’t sound or sustainable.”
Despite high demand for species familiar to restaurant diners, McNeil says there are species he actively avoids catching and trading in. “I know from my involvement in the industry, through lobbying groups and through marine biologists, that the populations of those species are not in good shape.”
Instead, McNeil targets specific species using sustainable methods. “What I catch is on a tiny scale; it’s very targeted – it’s all line caught,” he explains. “Anything that we supply from other fishers, we know exactly where it came from, how it was caught and we are comfortable with the methods and the stock of that particular species.”
Although many of us expect classic white-fish species such as snapper and tarakihi to be on restaurant menus, expanding our horizons and questioning how our food makes it to our plates could help change the future of fishing.
McNeil is optimistic about the change that needs to happen. “Ten years ago, there were only about five species of fish that chefs wanted – that’s completely changed.” Although he admits that COVID-19 has thrown a spanner in the works – more expensive, sustainably sourced produce may now be out of reach for some restaurants that are struggling to make ends meet – McNeil says in recent years chefs have been very willing to try new things. In fact, over the summer months he’ll often have a waiting list of eager chefs hoping to jump aboard his six-metre boat with him.
Commercial fishing is tough work, says McNeil. And although his wife, Maaike, helps with tagging and weighing fish after a day out on the water, it’s usually a one-man operation as far as the fishing is concerned. “You start at dawn, you head out past Kāpiti Island, you spend time tracking the tuna, sometimes you put the hooks down and they’re there, sometimes you spend hours finding them.”
When he takes a chef out with him they tend to enjoy it, but it can be overwhelming. “For hours you won’t get a strike, but that can change in a matter of minutes. When you start catching the tuna they come thick and fast. They keep biting the hook every time you throw it out.” McNeil says you can probably still count the number of small-scale fishers on the fingers of two hands, but the demand for a boutique, artisanal and sustainable fishing model is there. “That didn’t exist 10 years ago.” awatoruwildfood.co.nz