HOW HOME GROWN ABALONE ROSE FROM THE DEPTHS OF A TSUNAMI

James “Polly” Polanowski has been diving for abalone in Tasmania’s pristine waters for almost half his life. Even in primary school the now 37year-old would deckhand for his father and always knew he would be a diver.

It wasn’t long before he was spending five to six hours a day underwater catching wild abalone.

But it wasn’t until 2011, when a devastating tsunami ravaged Japan and decimated its abalone fishery, that a career-changing opportunity came about for Polanowski.

At this time, another Tasmanian, Mike Vecchione, who was trading timber in Japan, had a fortuitous meeting with a Japanese family — famous for their dried abalone — which gave Vecchione the idea that a product of equal quality, crafted by Tasmania’s ideal natural conditions, could be created here.

Vecchione partnered with Polanowski eight years ago and their business Candy Ab was created.

The afternoon sun dances across Barilla Bay, near Cambridge, and floods the large windows of Candy Ab, where racks containing hundreds of wild caught Tasmanian abalone dry naturally.

The drying process takes five months. A shell weight of 30,000kg of Tasmanian abalone is processed each year in the facility, drying out to a finished weight of about 3000kg and priced between $1295-$8000 per kilo. Polanowski explains that the business and their product gets its name from the extremely high natural sugar content that Tasmanian abalone contains.

“When we dry the abalone we want to achieve ‘candy’ — the sweetness in the heart of the abalone,” he says.

Aside from some early bouts of what Polanowski describes as “tortuous seasickness”, he wouldn’t want to work anywhere else but under the water.

“It’s a place where I can switch off from the outside world and achieve refreshing saltwater therapy,” he says.