Twiggy Forrest, Tassal Group, Huon Aquaculture: Who owns Australia’s squaculture industry
Mining magnates and biotech businessmen are among those making a billion-dollar splash in Australia’s aquaculture pool. Meet the major players.
Barons of the bush are now conquering the high seas, hooked by the profits on offer by Australia’s billion-dollar aquaculture industry.
So just who is riding this wave of investment?
Just two major companies hold the vast majority of market share in the Australian aquaculture industry, selling salmon and trout, crustaceans, tuna, oysters, and other fish and molluscs.
Outside of these two major powers, the industry is highly fragmented, with a third of other operators employing fewer than 20 people.
Overall, the Australian aquaculture is worth about $1.9 billion per year.
TASSAL GROUP LIMITED
The Tasmanian salmon farming company is Australia’s biggest player on the aquaculture scene, and is the nation’s largest producer and exporter of Atlantic salmon.
Tassal pride themselves on being sustainable producers of Atlantic salmon, with a focus on practices including selective breeding programs to support climate change adaptation for salmon and prawns, to artificial intelligence to support behavioural analysis of stock and enhanced feed efficiencies.
According to Ibis World data, Tassal represents about 32.8 per cent of the aquaculture market in Australia, selling salmon to restaurants, wholesalers, supermarkets, and fish markets both in Australia and abroad.
Tassal operates four marine zones and three hatcheries in Tasmania.
The footprint of Tassal spans far and wide, with the company the majority owner of Salmon Enterprises of Tasmania Pty Ltd.
Investment bank Mariner Corporate Finance, spearheaded by David Williams, rescued Tassal from receivership in 2003.
In 2015 the company acquired De Costi Seafoods, followed in 2018 by Fortune Group, which operated prawn farms in NSW and Queensland.
According to Ibis World estimates, Tassal Group’s revenue was $542 million for the 2020-21 financial year, a 12.5 per cent rise on the year prior.
HUON AQUACULTURE GROUP LIMITED
Accounting for about 22.4 per cent of Australia’s aquaculture industry, Huon Aquaculture Group was founded in 1994.
It has now morphed into one of the country’s largest salmon-farming companies, which produces more than 20,000 tonnes of fresh salmon a year.
Huon Aquaculture made headlines in 2021, following the news Brazilian-owned agribusiness company JBS would purchase the company, in a deal worth more than $549 million.
Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s investment company, Tattarang, also purchased shares in Huon Aquaculture last year.
The company also owns a processing facility in Sydney, along with a smokehouse and product innovation centre in Tasmania.
The value of Huon Aquaculture soared in the 2020-21 financial year, with total revenue worth $368.1 million, an almost 24 per cent rise compared to the year prior.
PETUNA AQUACULTURE PTY LTD
Privately owned by couple Peter and Una Rockliff, Petuna Aquaculture accounts for about 5 per cent of the Australian aquaculture industry.
Selling salmon and ocean trout, Petuna was established in 1949 originally as a fishing company.
The Rockliffs then diversified into aquaculture in the 1990s.
New Zealand-based company Sealord Group previously owned a 50 per cent stake in the company, before acquiring the remaining 50 per cent shareholding from the Rockliffs in 2020. Sealord Group plans to continue expanding Petuna Aquaculture’s operations in Tasmania’s northwest and south.
CLEAN SEAS SEAFOOD LIMITED
Formed in 2000 by the Stehr Group, Clean Seas Seafood Limited specialises in Southern Bluefin Tuna, Yellowtail Kingfish and Spencer Gulf Kingfish.
Accounting for a 2 per cent share of the aquaculture market, Clean Seas footprint includes a hatchery and a research and development facility on the Eyre Peninsula, along with multiple farms across the Spencer Gulf, and a seafood processing facility in Adelaide.
Clean Seas is Australia’s only commercial producer of kingfish.
ANGEL SEAFOOD HOLDINGS LIMITED
With a total revenue in the 2020 financial year of $5 million, South Australia’s Angel Seafood Holdings is the only certified sustainable and organic oyster producer in the world.
Originally a family-operated business, Angel Seafood has grown from being a traditional oyster business to a premium producer of Coffin Bay oysters.
In June last year, the company launched its Halo Club: a direct-to-consumer offering, which delivers fresh oysters directly to members across Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide.
In December agricultural investor Laguna Bay Group made a 20c per share takeover offer for Angel Seafood Holdings.
Angel’s organic certification was an industry first worldwide.
Angel Seafood’s oysters are also exported to Hong Kong.
SAFCOL AUSTRALIA PTY LTD
The South Australian Fishermans Co-Operative Limited is one of the world’s major suppliers of fresh, packaged and frozen seafood, including tuna, oysters, mussels, salmon and trout.
Based in South Australia, this foreign-owned private company also manages the South Australian Fish Market, and supplies produce to supermarkets and other specialty stores, controlling its catch from the ship to the shelf.
The company also exports produce abroad, to New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Greece and the Middle East.
Safcol operated from its head office in Adelaide, but its parent company is based in Malaysia.
RARE FOODS AUSTRALIA LIMITED
Owned and operated in Australia, Rare Foods harvests abalone.
Originally known as Ocean Grown Abalone, the company was founded in the 1960s by Terry Adams.
His son Brad, a third-generation fisherman, is now OGA’s director.
In the 2020-21 financial year, Rare Foods harvested almost 76 tonnes of Greenlip abalone from the company’s ranch at Flinders Bay, and sold to markets across Asia, Australia, and Europe.
CRAIG MOSTYN & CO PTY LTD
Craig Mostyn & Co Pty Ltd, trading as Craig Mostyn Group, is a locally owned private company responsible for Jade Tiger Abalone, which has the capacity to produce more than 200 metric tonnes of abalone a year.
Based on the Ballarine Peninsula in Victoria, Jade Tiger Abalone is comprised of a hatchery, nursery, and a grow out and export facility.
The Craig Mostyn Group was founded almost 100 years ago in 1923, and today spans pork, lamb and beef businesses as well as seafood.
In 2017, the company announced plans to acquire Western Australian meat processor, V & V Walsh, for about $100 million.
AQUNA
Based in the NSW Riverina, Aquna, trading as Murray cod Australia Limited, produces some of Australia’s most premium pond-grown Murray cod.
Aquna prides itself on its sustainability credentials, with a hatchery used for breeding fish from farm-raised stock, with no fish taken from the wild.
The company also contributes to fish restocking programs, and returns broodfish to the wild. Cod is grown in open ponds or dams across the Murray Darling Basin system, which is the fish’s natural environment.
Total revenue for the company for the 2020 financial year, according to the Aquna annual report, was just shy of $4 million.
SEAFARMS
Based in northern Queensland, Seafarms is one of Australia’s largest producers of farmed prawns, and one of the nation’s largest aquaculture operators.
Selling product under the Crystal Bay Prawns brand, Seafarms produces two different prawn species, providing customers with fresh prawns on an almost yearly basis.
Seafarms has been operating since the late 1980s, and produces about 1800 tonnes of produce a year.
PACIFIC BIO
With a focus on sustainable aquaculture, Pacific Bio, under the brand Pacific Reef Fishers, is one of the country’s largest suppliers of premium black tiger prawns, accounting for more than 20 per cent of Australia’s farmed prawns.
Another branch of the Pacific Bio brand is RegenAqua, a bioremediation solution that uses native green macroalgae to naturally remove nitrogen and phosphorus from water, using technology developed alongside James Cook University.
Based in Melbourne, with operations throughout northern Queensland, Pacific Bio has been operating since 2006, with an increased focus on green technology.
YUMBAH
With operations in Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia, Yumbah is on a mission to become Australia’s leading shellfish aquaculture company.
It went on a business buying spree last year, first acquiring Port Phillip Bay mussel producer Bay Sea Farms for a “significant”, but undisclosed amount, followed in quick succession by family-owned oyster producer Cameron of Tasmania in a deal worth more than $20 million.
Director Anthony Hall built his fortune by founding Pro Medicus Limited, but also believes passionately in the future of the aquaculture industry.
He a became a foundation investor of Bay Sea Farms in 1999, then later led a restructure of the operation, which became Yumbah in 2016.
The company is in a tussle with Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s Harvest Road to claim the title of biggest shellfish producer in Australia.
HARVEST ROAD OCEANS
Australian mining magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest might have conquered the turf as one of the nation’s biggest cattle barons but now he’s making waves in the aquaculture world.
Mr Forrest and his wife, Nicola, run Harvest Road Oceans – the aquaculture arm of its Harvest Road business, which is said to be Western Australia’s largest shellfish company with its mussels and oysters marketed through sustainable seafood brand Leeuwin Coast.
According to its website, Harvest Road aquaculture farms at Albany, Garden State and Carnarvon are designed around regenerative agriculture “a way to create thriving habitats, sequester carbon from the atmosphere and offer food security above and below the waves”.
According to reports, the business has more than 300 hectares of aquaculture leases. The Albany farm is set to become one of the biggest oyster producers in Western Australia.
Harvest Road says its investment in production capabilities will lead to an integrated supply chain throughout Western Australia.
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