Sealord has been enjoying large and plentiful hoki fishing while it considers stretching into acquisitions and fish farming.
This year’s hoki season has begun and group chief executive Graham Stuart said the fish are bigger, more copious and of a higher quality than they had been in more than 10 years.
"We're getting complaints that some of the fish are too big to fit on the cutting tables," he told The New Zealand Herald.
The industry's total allowable commercial catch (TACC) for hoki has been dropping since 2000: it fell from about 250,000 tonnes in 2000-1 to 90,000 by 2007-8. Hoki makes up about 18 per cent of Sealord's revenue.
"It's been an arduous journey," Stuart said.
Sealord would fish some 30 per cent of the TACC for hoki. A decade ago, it made up about NZD 270 million (USD 226 million) of its income before plunging to about NZD 70 million (USD 58.6 million) to NZD 80 million (USD 67 million); it is now worth just over NZD 100 million (USD 83.7 million).
"We fished down the hoki stocks and we've had to be in a conservative mode with those ... and now we're coming back into regrowth, which is a really good story around fishery recovering. It's a well recognised sustainable fishery, customers internationally are acknowledging that," he pointed out.
The government lifted the catch for hoki to about 110,000 tonnes for 2009-10 and to 120,000 tonnes for 2010-11.
"Now it's rebuilding confidence, getting people's chins off their chests, look forward, take risks, chance their arms, try new things," Stuart said.
"Buying things rather than organically growing," he continued. "A little bit more around aquaculture, which is in itself quite a risky sector."
Sealord already takes about 10 per cent of its turnover from aquaculture and it is now getting involved on a higher level, with more optimism and innovation, Stuart said.
The recent rise in the hoki catch and current survey data pointing to another increase coming in October has boosted its confidence in the fishery’s sustainability.
The Ministry of Fisheries considered hoki fisheries are sustainable and was consulting on bolstering the limit by 10,000 tonnes.
The higher valued currency had slammed returns in NZD terms, with 90 per cent of products exported into USD or EUR. Still, cheaper imports like fuel helped partially, he commented.