Seafood market is fishy business

LUKE Burgess earns his keep as a celebrated Tasmanian chef by being particular about produce - and he isn't happy about the seafood.

It is always limited to half a dozen of the same species of scale fish, and nigh impossible to source directly from fishermen operating in Tasmanian waters.

Occasionally, he fits in a rendezvous at a far flung coastal town to pick up something particularly good.

But there's no security of supply, or likelihood of finding that time too often.

A fish market would fix the problem - but who is going to be willing to set it up and run it when fish hauls can be sold in one go to markets in Melbourne or Sydney for more?

``It's complex, but also a ridiculously simple thing as well,'' Mr Burgess said.

The ``catch of the day'' is a furphy when even if boats did leave and return from Tasmanian ports they are likely to spend more than a day out at sea.

When buying produce from the Melbourne markets it is typically ordered in the morning, and delivered via sea freight the next day.

Sellers here say most consumers don't realise what local and fresh actually means.

Mako Fresh Fish owner Ann-Marie Johnson questions the very definition of ``a Tasmanian fish''.

The state shares seas with Victoria and New Zealand, and species considered local are also found further afield.

As she puts it: ``We need to redefine that, and think of cold water fish and deep water fish. You can't label all blue-eye trevalla as coming from Tasmania, as it's not.

``People also have to think about how far boats might travel out (from Tasmania) to get fish. People might think it's bizarre that fish caught here goes to Melbourne, but that could end up being closer for the boats.''

David Wilson owns and operates Kyeema Seafoods in Launceston and said: ``Everybody thinks that as a fish comes off the hook it has to go into the mouth and that any time in-between will kill you, but that's absolute bunkum.''

Typically, his staff meet four to five different boats at ports around Tasmania, pack seafood into ice and truck it back to Kings Meadows to be processed.

Many fish varieties could only be sourced from interstate, and when the weather was crap - and fisherman here couldn't go out - there was no other choice.

Before his time in retail-wholesale, Mr Wilson was a fisherman.

He sold his boat Kyeema to a deckhand in 2003. Back then, the licence fee was $2000, this year it was $14,600.

Rising costs in licence fees, fuel and quotas - ``and that's before you go to work'' - prompted his deckhand to give the game away too.

Fisherman Adam Howells said most operations were contracted to or sold their catches to the markets in Sydney and Melbourne for one reason: dollars.

``The difference can be $5 to $6 a kilo . . . and in Tasmania you go and see them if they want it (direct) but we also get big volumes and so if it means you're doing all that running around then often you don't have time for that,'' Mr Howells said.

Petuna Seafoods supplies local as well as interstate and international markets and Hobart's Mures family operates a fishing fleet and restaurants, which enable them to serve fish caught from their own boats.

Robert Gott, the state's marine resources director, said change became necessary when it was clear fishing stocks were under pressure.

``Back in the 1960s, if you wanted a licence to catch abalone you simply applied for and was granted a licence, so there was no link between catching the resource and sustaining the resource,'' he said.

``Since then, right across the nation, there's been a tortuous process of getting the cart behind the horse and managing our fisheries through appropriate licensing and regulatory frameworks to ensure we have sustainable industries.''

Mako Fresh Fish used to operate one of the punts on the Hobart waterfront, but Ms Johnson decided to pull out earlier this year.

She is planning to attach a commercial kitchen to her North Hobart shopfront so people can see how to prepare fish.

For her, being near the waterfront isn't important; it's how fish are caught and handled.

Those in the industry argue that fish will last for weeks and can be better eating days after death - if handled and stored correctly.

``The perception people have is that if they come to buy fish from you (at a punt) then you must be dropping a line out the back directly into the water. The industry is far more sophisticated than that,'' Ms Johnson said.

``It's about to become more complex as sustainability becomes more important . . . you as a consumer will have to pay for that, as fish becomes harder to source and there is more competition to buy what's available.''

Source: The Examiner, 23 July 2012