Bream Bay Hapuku Research

NIWA carries out fin fish research at its Bream Bay facility. In recent years they have focused on kingfish. They now know how fish could successfully be grown at various locations around the North Island and have the capability of producing high quality starter populations for commercial users. Kingfish has been identified as having very good commercial potential. The other species they have recently started to focus on is hapuka, which also has good commercial prospects. Prior to and tandem with the production research there has been an investigation into the species that are desired in the international marketplace, and into how consumers want these products supplied and presented. NIWAs aim is to provide a total ready-to-go package for NZ commercial interests to take up.

The New Zealand fishing industry supplies very high quality foods to world markets and there is no reason why that industry cant grow enormously, according to Dr Andrew Forsythe, chief scientist at NIWAs Bream Bay facility near Whangarei. However, its not simply a matter of looking at the scores of species that live around our coasts and picking some that can be grown easily.

Ultimately we have to think about being market-driven so we need to figure out what the market wants and try to match that with the species that we can grow. Obviously theres no point in studying species that grow well here but would have difficulty finding acceptance in the market or picking a species that the market wants that we can't grow, says Andrew.

Our focus here is very strongly on developing ways of breeding and growing new high-value species of fin fish. Kingfish was the first species that we brought through to a commercial stage.

Bream Bay is a $50 million aquaculture research facility and has probably the biggest nutrition and feed testing capability for fish in Australasia. On site there are 24 staff, and together with others in the wider NIWA organisation they have brought in kingfish breeding stock, developed captive breeding techniques, and proved that they had a commercial fit-for-purpose juvenile fish production capacity in the hatchery of around 350,000 fish. They now have an ongoing programme of cross-breeding and selection.

Their knowledge and capability is now available to the commercial fishing industry, but exploiting the opportunity for high-value fin fish aquaculture depends on access to sufficient suitable marine space for cages, says Andrew.

You will hear lots of talk growing them on land in tanks but that is hugely capital intensive, has very high energy costs and in my mind the only way you could do this was in an integrated farm that had its own water treatment and own tanks, he says.

But then why would you put it in New Zealand you would put it on the doorstep of your market to eliminate transport distances and costs. So really the commercial opportunity for New Zealand is in the sensible use of our coastal marine space for aquaculture.

For kingfish, suitable locations are the relatively warm waters of the Firth of Thames, Northland and maybe Bay of Plenty. Hapuka are cooler water species and that might be best around the South Island, and the southern half of the North Island.

Hapuka is a really attractive fish because it is perceived both locally and internationally as a high quality product and has some very valuable characteristics firm, white flesh and a good shelf life. We have spawning stocks that produced about 30 million eggs last year, but we are not in a position yet to supply large quantities of breeding stock commercially, says Andrew.

Last year we produced 2000 fish and because we lack holding capacity here at Bream Bay we put some in experimental cages in Wellington harbour and some in tanks at our Mahanga Bay site. This is sufficient for our experimental work, and we are developing techniques that will allow us to scale up quickly when the demand comes from commercial interests.

The Bream Bay team determines:

How to reproduce fin fish,

How to find the brood stock and get them to spawn,

A breeding selection program

What to feed them to make them grow quickly

What temperatures they grow best at and the effects of the lower or higher temperatures in different locations

How to avoid the diseases that they may be prone to

How to use diet to influence the flesh characteristics and optimise the product for the market

Approximately half the cost of fish production is feed, and so the big economic drivers for success are how efficiently they can convert feed and how quickly they can grow. Growth rate is a function of water temperature to their upper limit.

We have had a trial going here for nearly 18 months with identical groups of fish. One group is growing at Northland water temperatures and the other at 3 below that, which nominally represents the Marlborough Sound area, says Andrew.

From that we can develop a growth and performance model of how they will grow at different locations. That information is used in the selection of suitable marine sites for farming and for building the business model.

To encourage uptake by the industry NIWA aims to put together a viable commercial package that includes production, processing, packaging, transport and potential markets. Overseas markets require that products look right, taste right, be free from residues, come in a form that they like, are easy to cook, easy to source, easy to consume, and must not spoil en route. Consumers also want to know that the product has been produced in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner, and so to that end NIWA has another very large project looking at sustainable aquaculture, says Andrew.

We are looking at ways of ensuring that our aquaculture is sustainable at nutrients, benthic effects, growing species together and so on so that the process has minimal environmental impact. Most of the stories in the popular press about the hazards of fish farming are incorrect, he says.

But incorrect or not that is consumer perception and people who don't want to have this activity in their backyard will make quite bizarre accusations, so for New Zealand we have to stay on the front foot, be sure of the environmental consequences of our activities, and be ready to defend them.

The cost of production in NZ is higher than some other countries that are getting into fish farming, so it is important to aim to get a premium at the top end of the market. Last year NIWA arranged a taste test in Sydney involving top chef and buyers. The conclusion was that both hapuka and kingfish have potential for sashimi dishes in the white table cloth dining sector, and should find a ready market on the West Coast of the USA and in Europe.

The New Zealand industry is very interested in NIWAs kingfish commercial package but there are two major hurdles for them to overcome, according to Dr Bryce Cooper, General Manager Strategy.

One limitation is access to marine space given all the regulatory constraints that exist. Until RMA regulations and regional council policies change they are hamstrung. It is very difficult to convert mussel farming space to fin fish or to find new space for fin fish, says Bryce.

The government has established a technical advisory group that has come back with recommendations as to how to unblock the legislative process for aquaculture which, if implemented by the Government will let fin fish farming happen. Hopefully there will be space available within the next year.

The hurdle is that in fish farming requires significant start-up capital investment and then there are several years delay until the fish grow to harvest. Over the first five years a farm of viable size may need an investment of between $30 and $50 million. The result would be an enterprise with a turnover of $100 million per year, but there is also some risk involved.

The second hurdle is that fish farming requires significant start-up capital investment and then there are several years delay until the fish grow to harvest. Over the first five years a farm of viable size may need an investment of between $30 and $50 million. The result would be an enterprise with a turnover of $100 million per year, but there is considerable risk involved in investing so much capital up-front in a start-up industry. This is where some form of Government/private sector partnership would help give it a kick start.

NIWA has made a large R&D investment into kingfish and hapuka and will not have the capacity or funding to look for other suitable species until the first two are handed over to commercial interests.

Already in aquaculture we have mussels being produced as a good base commodity, salmon farming is well-established, and if we can get kingfish and Hapuka established that would bring quite a bit of diversity into the sector, says Bryce.

We would like to taste test other New Zealand species with the objective of bringing suitable ones to the top restaurant tables in the world by developing production methods, identifying high value markets and transferring the technology to the industry.