Mechanical cockle harvesting for export

Press, 25 July 1985, Page 36

Mechanical cockle harvesting for export

Cockle harvesting on the beach of Golden Bay has been turned into a successful one-man operation by Mr Alister McDonald, of Pakawau, who now has a licence to move up to 225 tonnes a year.

About 90 per cent of these are exported to Los Angeles and San Francisco, plus a small amount to the east coast of the United States and Italy. Mr McDonald first attempted digging the cockles

mechanically in 1981, and two years ago received an experimental licence from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Since April 2, this year, he has had a full permit to mechanically harvest the cockles between I.7km and 5.4 km north of Pakawau Bridge. Mr McDonald started by drawing a long digger with a three-wheel motor-cycle, and in the last 12 months has developed a self-pro-pelled, hydrostatic unit, for between $12,000 and $14,000,

which works something like a mini-potato digger. Nelson United Council had inspected and approved the machine, which operated on wide tyres that exerted little pressure on the sand, thus not damaging the cockles, he said. The unit is cheap to run, using only about $5 worth of petrol to dig a tonne of cockles — “and it can dig a tonne in two hours,” Mr McDonald said. “I am expanding my tonnage and developing a market in New Zealand,” he said. “I get a few orders

from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, but people still don’t know what cockles are. “If the product is handled correctly, it will have a shelf life of 14 days — and it usually takes us only two days to fly them to Los Angeles. “We wash the cockles carefully, taking off all weeds, chill them to about four degrees C., keep them at that temperature, and pack them in white polystyrene bins, which have a plastic liner and air holes on top,” Mr McDonald said.