A big fish in the business of selling seafood
You have to give it to Donna Wells. Twenty years ago, with eight years’ fishing business experience under her belt, she set up as a small fry in the big-player, male-dominated seafood industry.
Today, her specialty is quota brokerage and being a seafood provider on behalf of independent fishing owners and operators around the country.
Her hard work, tenacity and networking have paid off, and today her Nelson-based company, Finestkind, is highly regarded in the industry, both here and across the Tasman. Seafood Industry Australia has only one Kiwi member, and it’s her.
‘‘In many ways, I’m the original small Kiwi business,’’ she points out. ‘‘But I must admit to a fair bit of pride and a sense of achievement that Finestkind products regularly make it on to the auction floor alongside other big Kiwi suppliers like OPC, Moana Pacific and New Zealand King Salmon.
‘‘Finestkind is a top brand, which reflects in the prices returned to our suppliers.’’
Donna is talking about the Sydney Fish Market, to which she currently supplies about 60 tonnes of top-grade fish each year. Currently, she is sourcing from eight independent fishers, with the top three making up around 75 per cent of her supply turnover.
Her job is always busiest just before the fish are shipped overseas. As a registered exporter, it’s her job to arrange the transport, airfreight logistics and paperwork for every step along the way.
Fishing compliance is mindbogglingly complicated, she says. ‘‘The industry has its own language and lingo – QMS, MHRs, ACE transactions – and that’s before you even start exporting the fish.’’
In many ways, Donna was made for her job. Of Ngati Kahu descent, she was born in Onehunga and grew up in South Auckland. It was at Otahuhu College that she was streamed into ‘‘commercial’’ subjects which have served her in good stead.
Her first jobs after leaving school were clerical ones, with the Post Office and Government Life Insurance. But when she turned 20, she took off for some OE in Australia, and got a job as a housemaid on Hayman Island off Queensland.
This was where she met her future husband, Ken Wells, who was working at the same resort. The two hooked up and travelled within Australia before moving across the world and working in London pubs, before ending up in Iceland with jobs in a big fish factory.
‘‘That was real hard work,’’ she recalls. ‘‘It made me realise the value of giving up your freedom for a paycheque. I also learnt heaps about how fish got processed!’’
They made their way home, Donna following up with a fouryear stint as court reporter for the Commonwealth Reporting Service, based in Sydney. Ken, meanwhile, had come back to New Zealand to build his dream fishing boat, the 11.9-metre FV Orca, at the family base at Wakatahuri in Pelorus Sound.
The couple married in 1991, and their only child, Max, came a year later. The reality of married life became jointly managing their fishing business, which entailed catching tuna all the way up the West Coast as far as north as Manukau, scalloping around the top of the south, and trawling Nelson, Tasman and Golden bays along with the Marlborough Sounds.
Donna’s organisational skills proved perfect for the family fishing business, and when she saw an article in Seafood Industry magazine about the Sydney Fish Market, she took Max over with her to investigate.
‘‘It was the start of the supply trade for me,’’ she recalls. ‘‘I could tell immediately there was an opportunity, but it had to be done right.
‘‘It gave me the confidence to start up Finestkind in 1999. Other fishermen started to come on board when they saw that we were consistently getting higher prices for our product.’’
Ken and Donna separated around 2000. She stayed in Golden Bay for seven years and ran her business from there, before moving back to Nelson in 2005 and setting up an office in Vickerman St, which she operated out of for 13 years.
She describes Port Nelson as a dynamic place to work. ‘‘You’re right in the middle of all the action. All the fishing companies are there, and the boats. It’s the heart of the industry, and it’s the people you meet that keep you going.
‘‘A fisherman once said to me that the industry is very characterbuilding! I couldn’t agree more.’’
Donna’s proudest work moments all involve meeting people and learning experiences – such as being invited to join an Australian seafood delegation to attend the Brussels Seafood Exhibition, where she turned 50.
Representing her company at the Bluff Oyster Festival, partnering with Saint Clair Family Estate Winery at the Marlborough Food and Wine Festival for many years, and Sydney Fish Market Seafood Excellence Awards – all encouraging points along the way.
Donna is of the firm opinion that the industry needs more women, because they are team players and have excellent organisational skills.
‘‘Catching fish is one thing – it’s what you do with it afterwards that determines how successful things are.’’ On Finestkind’s website, she has put together a collection of insightful profiles entitled ‘Women in Seafood’.
She also reckons that the industry is going through some momentous changes.
‘‘Electronic compliance has sure done away with the mountain of paper – that’s great. But there’s a huge attrition of the older, more experienced fishermen who are exiting the industry, and that’s a huge loss of experience.
‘‘But there’s also a lot of innovation and modernisation happening, and it’s all helping to make a more compliant, efficient and sustainable industry which taps into market with excellent products and traceability.
‘‘That sort of innovation we need in every area, and we are all ambassadors for our industry.’’
From her experience brokering quota, she is also convinced that the whole system of quota management (not ownership) needs a good overhaul.
‘‘Last year, fishing companies collectively paid $6.5 million back to Government in deemed value for their catch above their quota. It all needs rejigging based on ‘real’ estimates of fish stocks.’’
At 61, Donna is having a rethink and considering her options, one of which is moving back to her house in Collingwood and distancing herself after two decades of intensity in the industry.
‘‘I love a change of scene, and having the knowledge that I can work my business from amazing places like Hawaii and Sydney even – anywhere there’s internet.
‘‘I already work the business back at home in Nelson, so there’s no reason I can’t carry on in Collingwood. But maybe it’s also time for someone else to step in and get involved.’’
Max has grown up and left home, and now works for St John as an ambulance officer based in Motueka. Donna and Ken maintain an amicable friendship in the industry, with Ken supplying her with fish for export from the Orca until he finished trawling.
‘‘Soon, he will be trying for albacore tuna off Tasman Bay – that’s climate change for you, that they’ve moved in here now,’’ she says.
‘‘Seafood is a highly changeable business, working with many variables on so many levels, and I’m proud to have served at total of 28 years as a part of it – and survived.’’
‘‘A fisherman once said to me that the industry is very character-building! I couldn’t agree more.’’
Donna Wells