Australian fishing businesses have experienced a boom in demand for their locally caught products after a tumultuous year involving lockdowns, freight issues and labour shortages.
Snap closures of restaurants and suspended flights destroyed many markets overnight, while trade tensions left seafood rotting on tarmacs overseas.
Some wondered if business would survive, but industry figures say they have emerged stronger by refocusing on domestic trade.
North Queensland fisherman Chris Bolton mainly supplied the capital city restaurant trade with his line-caught reef fish such as coral trout but switched to direct sales when the pandemic closed the hospitality industry.
“We got flooded with demand for direct to public, online processed fish, but we had problems with staff,” he said.
“The JobSeeker, $750 per week [payment], made it very hard to get the extra staff to do online sales. It’s been a roller coaster, up and down. I’ve got a few more grey hairs this year, I think.”
Mr Bolton said many applicants demanded cash wages for work to maintain their JobSeeker payments, leading him and his wife, Kim, to stop online sales as they were unable to keep up with processing orders.
But when restaurants in several states reopened at the beginning of winter, demand for fish was much stronger than expected, a surprise Mr Bolton put down to lockdown-era savings and a desire to support domestic businesses.
Mr Bolton said from day one the restaurants seemed to have a demand for local product.
“I was very surprised to see it, but I think Australians instantly realised they needed to support local producers more,” he said.
“Aussies used to spend about $30 billion, I think, on overseas holidays annually.
“Obviously, that money’s not going overseas, and people are going out to restaurants more and travelling more, there’s more money in our economy.”
Sales figures from the Seafood Industry of Australia suggest December 2020 saw a 30 per cent rise on 2019 results, driven by strong marketing and media around Christmas seafood availability.
Typically around 70 per cent of Australia’s seafood is imported, but industry leaders are waiting for further data to fully understand how COVID-19 may have affected that figure.
Queensland Seafood Marketers’ Association secretary Neil Moretto said reports from members had highlighted several main reasons why local product sales were increasing.
“The major one is consumer demand, consumers are looking for Australian product, they know it’s top quality product,” he said.
Many live exporters of seafood were struck with difficulties sending product overseas when flights were cancelled, a problem partly alleviated by Federal Government subsidies.
However, businesses using domestic flights also suffered, with fish taking several days to reach customers, sometimes even within the same state.
2021 ABC