Territorians help celebrate National Barra Day
Workers at the country’s largest barramundi farm marked National Barra Day in unique style this week.
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The team at Humpty Doo Barramundi don’t just like the Northern Territory’s iconic silver fish – they love it.
And to mark National Barra Day on Friday, the team at largest barramundi farm got together this week to celebrate their favourite fish by cooking it into their favourite dish.
With about 140 employees from a diverse spread of cultures, the farm was awash on Wednesday with the flavours and aromas of some of the Humpty Doo Barra team’s signature dishes.
Most of the meals were prepared at home and reheated on site as the team scoffed a free barra lunch – or lunches – prepared by one of their colleagues.
Farm owners Tarun and Dan Richards said the idea came from staff who not only worked with barramundi, but also love to catch them, cook them and eat them.
“When they’re not at work and they have spare time, a lot of our team spend it fishing because they love fishing and barramundi,” Tarun said.
“In other years we’ve done burgers and tacos to celebrate National Barramundi Day, and this time everyone said they wanted to cook something too, and now we’ve ended up with these dishes from all over the world.
“We’re such a big team and have specialist areas like hatchery, harvest, maintenance, fish health, and packing. Everyone’s busy and they work within their own team, so events like this mean colleagues get to mix and mingle together a bit.”
The team prepared a menu that reads like it came from a Michelin rated restaurant.
Indonesian fish curry, spicy Indonesian fried fish, barramundi noodle soup and barramundi rice porridge (congee) were a selection of the 14 delicacies served up.
“We’ve got such a diverse team it’s a wonderful way for everyone to be able to share their culture and show how they’re enjoying our barramundi,” Dan said.
As the farm expanded during recent years, Tarun and Dan decided a permanent workforce would support its development and growth.
“We realised a few years ago that we needed to invest in a stable workforce if we intended to ggrow,” Tarun said. “To do that we needed to be an employer of choice, so we set out to be a place where people wanted to come and work.”
“We were growing because we wanted an established, based workforce and to be an employer of choice. How can we be a place that people want to come and work.”
Humpty Doo Barra sells between 100-110 tonnes of stock a week, almost exclusively to Australian buyers.
Local outlets selling the product include Wharf One, The Hilton, Shenanigans, The Beachfront, Pink Chopstix, Saffrron, Madame Za and Snapper Rocks.
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