Johnnie Bradie helps to process these crayfish tails for export to America. (Photograph: N. M. Beaumont). fishermen independent, even though quite a large percentage of the cost of the boats is financed by the company. One company they bought out had, in addition, one oyster boat and six others. Once the ordinary activities of the company were on a sound footing. Mr Ellison developed a great interest in buying out companies or else taking over their management. As he says, sometimes a concern has a perfectly good and valuable product to sell, but due to lack of finance or bad management, somehow no success is achieved. Quite a number of such businesses have become associate companies of Otakou Fisheries, with a fee charged for management expenses. Nine concerns, in addition, have been bought outright and become subsidiary companies. Some of them were in the oyster or crayfish business, others were transport companies languishing until the association with Otakou's produce put new life into them. Otakou Fisheries began to handle a lot of products other than fish. One of the latest ideas is to pack boneless lamb for the American market. Factories and freezers run by the company are at Karitane, Otakou, Dunedin, Taieri, Waikawa (Southland). Bluff and Stewart Island. At the beginning of this year. Mr Ellison was thinking of a branch further north. The Maori community of Otakou are still deeply attached to their Maori past. The chapel is decorated with concrete casts of carved slabs from Rotorua. Meanwhile new ideas keep coming up. The latest is a fish roll (somewhat similar to a Belgian roll) made out of oysters, crayfish and ordinary fish. The recipe was worked out by a member of the staff. The idea is to utilize a modern type of shredder which can cut up the coarser types of fish so that the coarseness goes out of it and it is then flavoured by means of this recipe. If the plan goes through, this fish roll should be one of the cheapest and pleasantest meals on the market. One could say far more about the business schemes of Mr Ellison. The amount he turned over last year was well over £892,000 not including the other companies. The greatest strain of his career as a businessman was the English strike which stopped his exports for five months. At the end of that period he had 33,000 cases of crayfish tails in storage…worth well over £100,000 and the bank overdraft reached a dangerous figure. I asked Mr Ellison how he kept up-to-date on business ideas and methods. He told me that when he started up he found people helpful and talkative and prepared to tell him what he did not know. He regularly studies magazines on subjects such as packing and deepfreezing. The most up to date ones are from the United States. Has the whole of the Ellison family now gone into big business? No, Rani's brothers did not like it. Rangi went back to the farm and when Otakou Fisheries bought the Ranui, George went fishing. The future of Otakou Fisheries of course still depends to a large extent on the seafoods market. Last year half the company's turnover came from the profitable United States lobster market which seems stable and ready to absorb all it can get. Earlier in the year there was some threat of legislation outlawing the term ‘lobster’ for the imported species such as the New Zealand crayfish. This would have harmed the trade, but latest information is that the United States are not likely to pass this legislation. As long as the crayfish trade flourishes, this most spectacular of Maori business enterprises has every chance of continued growth and prosperity.