Very profitable export and a local luxury

Press, 23 November 1976, Page 1

Very profitable export and a local luxury

The general manager of P. Feron and Sons (Mr H. W. Rademaker), commented on the $7500 fine imposed on Wrightson NMA, recently, for buying scrubbed tails. The company was alleged to have taken the illegal tails under pressure from Chatham Islands fishermen.

“In the Chathams, crayfishing is virtually the sole industry,” he said. “If you don’t make a success of that, you fail. Here it is only a small proportion of the fishing industry.”

For this reason, his company had never been sub-

jected to pressure from fishermen to accept undersize. scrubbed, or eggcarrying crayfish. One fisheries manager estimated that while crayfish formed less than 5 per cent of the fish handled by his company each year, they provided at least 20 per cent of its annual financial turnover. Other locally-based companies handle a larger proportion of crayfish, but describe a similar disparity between volume and turnover.

Most crayfish handled by Christchurch companies are exported, although a small proportion is sold to

local retailers. One fisheri.s manager said they were too expensive for the local market. Processing for export usually consists of tailing and cleaning, although some are cooked. Tails were divided into five grades, according to weight, the smaller tails being more popular on overseas markets, the manager said. The Wrightson NMA conviction and accompanying publicity had been “very embarrassing,” said a company spokesman. He said the Chatham Island plant manager, who had since been suspended

and then reinstated after two strong requests from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, had acted out of “misguided company loyalty.” He said the news media had given an unfair impression that the company had aided and abetted the illegal acts from business expediency, which was not true. It was true the company had been convicted on a similar charge two years ago, but that had arisen from two employees’ lack of knowledge — they had started only that day — while the manager was busy.