King Salmon ahead after harvest woes

New Zealand King Salmon expects to hear back in August from Minister of Fisheries Stuart Nash about plans to tow fish farms into deeper water in the Tory Channel and Waitata Bay in the Marlborough Sounds.

The company’s managing director, Grant Rosewarne, said he had met with Nash and understood a decision could be made at his discretion or via legislation.

The aim of shifting them was to increase production in the swifter flowing waters to reduce seabed pollution and fish health problems, but this was opposed by some groups on navigation and environmental grounds.

‘‘We’re also talking with local iwi about their involvement in running the farms,’’ he said.

About half of the company’s Marlborough farms were of no use because they were developed decades ago before all the requirements of fish farming were understood, and were in areas where water was too warm or too shallow, Rosewarne said.

NZ King Salmon was also developing plans for a compost brand made from the deposits on the seabed under fish farms.

Rosewarne said the company had held focus groups with gardeners in co-operation with Mitre 10 and received positive feedback.

‘‘We want to control our destiny. We used to provide pet food ingredients to other processors and it would be included along with other ingredients under other brands until we decided to do it ourselves under the Omega Plus brand.’’

Another big change already well under way was the importation of processed and sliced Atlantic salmon from Canada and Norway. The processed product avoided any biosecurity issues. ‘‘Rather than fight it we’ve decided to embrace imports.’’

Rosewarne said he expected the company would increase imports for sale in New Zealand to about 1500 tonnes over the next year or so. The company harvests about 8000 tonnes annually and sells half of it overseas.

NZ King Salmon is on track to post a $25 million annual profit from its eight farms despite tonnes of fish dying due to hot weather last summer.

The losses prompted the company to import stock to maintain sales, and seek $116,000 from a Ministry for the Environment waste fund to develop processes for dead fish and fish faeces.

Despite the farming challenges, export sales were ‘‘highly successful’’ especially the marketing of the company’s premium O¯ ra King and Regal brands that were sold in hundreds of restaurants overseas, he said.

NZ King Salmon’s report for the year ending in June 2018 will be published with more detail in August.

Highlights from the report include sales volumes of 7750 metric tonnes compared with 7223 tonnes in 2017. The company’s profit after tax in 2017 was $22m.

Rosewarne said prices were up, with positive demand and limited supply partly due to high summer temperatures affecting salmon survival rates.

NZ King Salmon would continue its annual investment of about $13m to improve performance ‘‘and unlock the full environmental and economic potential from the existing farm consents’’.

It is the world’s largest aquaculture producer of the king salmon species and employs about 500 people. Mel McGrath is struggling to pay a $1300 bill she ran up with prepaid power firm Globug.

‘‘They stopped charging me for seven months. I wasn’t able to get hold of them, then all of a sudden one day they shut my power off.’’

Now 25 per cent of whatever she tops up goes towards that bill and she can’t change to a new supplier until it is paid.

‘‘I’m currently spending $120 a week to keep my kids warm and pay the bill back,’’ she said.

The Christchurch mum is far from alone. A survey by Consumer found 42 per cent of Globug customers experienced poor service in the past year, the worst result of any power company.

One in four Globug customers said they’d complained to the company about its service.

Consumer NZ head of research Jessica Wilson said other countries had safeguards to protect customers whose only option was prepaid power.

‘‘We don’t have any specific safeguards here and there needs to be to make sure they are not discriminated against and receive a fair service.’’

A spokeswoman for Globug said the results were disappointing and the company wanted to talk to Consumer NZ about the feedback it received, which contrasted with a report from the industry complaints body, Utilities Disputes.

‘‘We see Globug as an important service for a segment of the population who aren’t being served well under post-pay arrangements.’’

The survey also found a significant number of households were having trouble paying their bills.

Eighteen per cent of consumers had run into financial difficulties paying for power in the past year. Thirteen per cent had borrowed from family or friends to pay bills.

Disconnections for nonpayment had also started to rise again. Last year, 25,317 people had their power disconnected because of unpaid bills, up from 19,106 in 2015.