Huon expands to Western Australia

HUON Aquaculture, the large Tasmanian salmon farming group, is to create a 24,000 tonne capacity fish farm on a 6,000 acre location off the Abrolhis Islands in Western Australia.

David Kelly, the fisheries minister for Western Australia, confirmed that the company has signed a contract with the state government for a lease in the mid-west aquaculture development zone. It will cultivate not salmon, but yellowtail kingfish.

Also known as Australian kingfish, the yellowtail has a pale pink flesh and a sweet, rich flavour with few bones. It is often used in Japanese and Thai dishes.

Kelly said Huon’s venture, when fully operational, will be one of the biggest seafood operations in the state and is expected to create up to 3,000 direct and indirect jobs.

He said in a press statement: ‘To get an operator like Huon, who know what they’re doing and have the know-how to do aquaculture well, is great coup for Western Australia.

‘Aquaculture is something that, compared to other states, has been significantly underdone here.’

He said he felt confident that conventional activities in the area, such as lobster fishing and pearl diving, would not be affected.

‘Biosecurity is one of the key conditions up there, they understand [that] and it is in their interests — they have to make sure all of those things are taken into account,’ he said.

‘We think they’ve all been properly dealt with and we don’t anticipate any problems in that regard, but it is one of the monitoring requirements that will be ongoing.

‘Huon have been operating in Tasmania for a long time. They have been highly successful, so we’re pretty confident that they’ll be operating successfully at the Abrolhos.’

Huon was started in 1986 by Peter and Frances Bender as a side activity to their family cattle and sheep farming business.

Producing 17,000 tonnes of salmon a year, it has since grown into one of the largest fish farming operations in Australia.