Clean Seas Seafood
The company’s initial purpose was to propagate and grow southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii), as well as other species including yellowtail kingfish.
Clean Seas is recognised for innovative aquaculture practices and reliability in supplying the highest quality fresh fish to markets all over the world, 52 weeks a year.
Their operational footprint is on the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, which includes a hatchery in Arno Bay and multiple farm sites off Port Lincoln in the Spencer Gulf.
Clean Seas works with its network of distributors, wholesalers, chefs, restaurants and retailers to develop long-term relationships in markets across the world.
The unique Spencer Gulf location, environmental conditions and significant aquaculture experience allows Clean Seas to produce a premium quality kingfish.
[2] The company successfully controlled the life-cycle of the Yellowtail kingfish and invested substantial research and development effort in trying to achieve the same for the Southern bluefin tuna from 2005 onwards.
The company has posted significant annual losses in many financial years, and has had its social licence challenged by recreational fishers and Spencer Gulf residents due to its handling of kingfish escapes, garbage, pollution and shared use facilities, including the Point Lowly North marina.
Conversely, the company has won various awards and accreditations that acknowledge their product and market development achievements and its founder has an Order of Australia Medal and is a member of the Australian Seafood Hall of Fame.
In 2005, Clean Seas was awarded an AUD $4 million grant from the Australian Government to develop a system for the land-based production of young Southern bluefin tuna.
Clean Seas announced that they had closed the lifecycle of the Southern bluefin tuna after successfully producing eggs from captive mature fish.
[7] By mid-2009, the company had raised young Southern bluefin tuna to roughly 20 cm long, and members of the Norwegian aquaculture sector were expressing interest in their progress.
[8] In March 2010, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission investigated Clean Seas for failing to disclose the deaths of Southern bluefin tuna fingerlings to the market.
Research and development was eventually discontinued as the company had difficulty raising the larvae which have complex water temperature requirements, eat each other and injure themselves in captivity.
[10] The company officially suspended its Southern bluefin tuna propagation research as a cost-cutting measure after it revealed it had made a $34 million statutory loss for the last half of 2012.
[11] In February 2013, Stehr remained optimistic about Clean Seas' future prospects for closing the life-cycle of the Southern bluefin tuna.
[15] The company was also attempting to accelerate the Yellowtail kingfish's growth by artificially increasing water temperature for fish held in tanks at Arno Bay.
[22] In September 2010, Clean Seas staff killed 80 tonnes of stock as a result of human error while "bathing" the fish in hydrogen peroxide at the wrong concentration.
[31] Clean Seas directed blame for the losses at feed suppliers Ridley Corporation and Skretting Australia, serving both companies legal notice that it would be seeking damages to the value of "tens of millions" of Australian dollars in 2012.
Clean Seas alleged that the supplier's product was deficient in taurine which contributed to poor fish health and stock losses between 2009 and 2012.
[45] In 2018, Clean Seas' directors were confident about the prospects for their Yellowtail kingfish business, and planned to resume farming in Fitzgerald Bay, near Whyalla in August of that year.
[46] In November 2018, Clean Seas signed a distribution agreement with Chinese seafood distributor, Hunchun Haiyun Trading Co Ltd.[47][48][49] That year, the company received $2.5 million from the Australian Government in a program to support employment initiatives in regional areas.
[51] In May 2021 Clean Seas halted trading on the ASX briefly, pending their secondary listing on the Oslo-based Euronext Growth Exchange in Norway.
Clean Seas works with high profile chefs and restaurants in the marketing of their product, including chefs Giovanni Pilu, Shaun Presland, Donovan Cook, Frank Shek and Nicky Reimer and restaurants such as Bennelong and China Doll in Sydney, The Atlantic in Melbourne, Zuma in London and Nobu in Milan.
[71] In 2010 then head of stock-broking firm Lonsec, Norman John Graham, was served a notice by ASIC alleging 14 counts of insider trading related to the sale of stock in Clean Seas Tuna.
[72] Founder and early Chairman Hagen Stehr has been outspoken in voicing opposition to the establishment of marine parks, changes in tuna quotas to conserve the species and proposals by other industrialists to introduce new sources of pollution to Spencer Gulf waters.
In 2009, the Committee for the Conservation of the Southern Bluefin Tuna reduced Australia's Total Allowable Catch by 30 percent, angering company chairman, Hagen Stehr.
[74] In July 2011, Stehr announced his objection to the proposal from BHP Billiton to construct a seawater desalination plant at Point Lowly, south of Fitzgerald Bay.
