Gisborne Fisheries brings the seafood home

BLUE WATER BOUNTY: Gisborne Fisheries director Tony Zame and son managing director Salvatore Zame, are part of a successful family business that celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. In the late 1990s, Gisborne Fisheries bought lobster quota and established strategic relationships with companies like Lee Lobster and local crayfishermen. To do this properly, the business needed to improve its infrastructure. In 2003, a modern facility was built on the adjoining Peel Street site. Picture by Sheridan Gundry

FROM two fish shops to a fleet of boats and a processing, live lobster storage and distribution plant, Gisborne Fisheries is a family business whose founders came to New Zealand from the volcanic Sicilian island of Stromboli.

The conical island off the coast of north Sicily gave one of the company’s familiar red fishing boats its name, while two other vessels — Bartolo Zame and Giovannina — were named after managing director Salvatore Zame’s grandfather and grandmother respectively.

The business was established a few years before Gisborne Fisheries set up at its Peel Street site in 1955 — first with the creation of the Regent Café then the Cafe de Luxe near the town clock.

Bartolo Zame established the fish shops and cafes with two Greek brothers. When the fish business grew, Bartolo bought the site where Direct Fish Supply operated in Peel Street. The business’s next incarnation was as Gisborne Fisheries at the same location. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the family business’s establishment in Peel Street.

“We are basically still doing what we did back then,” says managing director Salvatore, a fourth-generation Zame in the business. Technological advances and the scientific application of sustainability measures have seen changes in the way the company operates however.

Satellite-based navigation systems and depth sonar have superceded radar, while improvements to the “cool chain” have also been key to ensuring quality product, says Mr Zame.

In his predecessors’ day, fish were hauled then threaded with twine in bundles of about 10. Once in port, a system similar to that used in the now redundant Freezing Works was used. The strings of fish were hung on hooks which were attached to a rail and transported to the chiller.

In the 1980s, the system changed from strings to bins.

Stored on iceThe catch is now sorted into a slurry of ice and water, and sent down a chute into the hold where the fish is stored on ice. Five or six unloaders put fish into bins which are hoisted into trucks. The bins are transported to the factory where the fish is deboned, filleted and distributed.

“The fish is unloaded, processed at the plant and in local retailers’ windows that morning,” says Mr Zame.

“There are few places in New Zealand where you would get that.”

The company has three vessels from which three or four catches total are unloaded per week. To ensure freshness of product, vessel unloads are staggered during the week.

Gisborne Fisheries has a self-imposed restriction on weekly volume of take and the length of time vessels stay at sea, says Mr Zame.

“Smaller, frequent unloads mean we deliver high-quality product. If we can deliver our customers a regular supply of quality fish, week in and week out, it helps retailers’ business.”

The company’s boats focus on inshore fishing grounds in depths that range from 40m to 200m, from East Cape to Portland Island. About 50 percent of the catch is tarakihi, around 12.5 percent gurnard and 12.5 percent snapper.

As part of a joint venture between Gisborne Fisheries and Richard and Jean Kibblewhite, they also run the fishing vessel Pearler — a fibreglass cray boat. It is also used for netting lemon fish, school shark, moki, warehau, ling and hapuku.

Around 15 to 20 percent of Gisborne Fisheries’ catch supplies nearly 90 percent of local fish shops with fresh fish, while about 95 percent of the rock lobster catch is exported to China.

“Gisborne Fisheries has a broad base of smaller customers. When a lot of fish is on the market retailers still buy from Gisborne Fisheries as they are assured of a regular supply of quality fish. We are reliant on them, they are reliant on us.”

Commercial fishing makes up the bulk of New Zealand’s $1.5 billion a year seafood industry, which is one of the largest primary industry income sources for New Zealand, says Mr Zame.

Gisborne Fisheries has a staff of 20, which includes management, workers at the Peel Street factory, skippers and crews.

Fish stocks in East Coast waters benefit from nutrient-rich seas, says Mr Zame.

When deep water in the Hikurangi Trough and 10,000-kilometre deep Kermadec Trench off the East Coast hits shallow water, convection currents and eddies enable the nutrient-rich cold water to feed the marine ecosystem.

“The variety of species we catch in our region is considered by chefs around the world as some of the best seafood the world has to offer.”