Support buys Tangaroa Seafoods time

Tangaroa Seafoods in Ahuriri is for sale as owner Chris Robinson struggles with a series of hits to the fishing arm of his business.

The shop will stay open for at least another week, thanks to overwhelming support, says Chris' wife Sue Robinson.

"It is very humbling," she said.

Mr Robinson has been fishing for 35 years and started processing fish and selling wholesale with Tangaroa three years ago. Two years ago the retail arm opened. "The objective was to supply quality fish to both retail and wholesale markets in Hawke's Bay because they hadn't been getting it," he said.

But his fishing company was still feeling the pinch after a joint-venture partner pulled out unexpectedly eight years ago "and left us in the cart".

"We got hammered financially and slowly rebuilt our fleet, without funding support from the banks," Mr Robinson said.

"Last year the owner of a vessel I had sold defaulted on the payments. But we got the vessel back after a struggle.

"We were refitting it as a longliner but in December our main trawler, Challenger, had a catastrophic engine failure. That put us out of action."

With significant dept-free assets they had expected the banks to come to their aid "but last week the last bank turned us down".

"We were under pressure from our creditors, and justifiably so, so my business partner Sue Taylor and I said in order to pay back our creditors and exit on a favourable note we would just call it quits and put everything up for sale."

He said they only had to sell one of their two main boats, or their freehold Tangaroa St property, to put them in the black.

"I didn't want to see a slow wind-down. I guess I just got pissed off and had enough, but since that decision we have had so much support from customers.

"They are saying, you can't do this, our fish is just so much better, consistent and reliable and our ordering system is great," Mr Robinson said.

"The support we have had has been terrific."