Taupō's Huka Prawn Park on the boil again after business bombshells

Huka Prawn Park co-owner Richard Klein shows off the new geothermal heat system that has been installed, as part of a 35-year deal with Contact Energy's neighbouring Wairakei Geothermal Power Station, near Taupō. Photo / Dan Hutchinson

You need a hard shell to be in the prawn business.

For the owners of the Huka Prawn Park near Taupō, it has been a case of ‘out of the pot and into the fire’ in recent years, thanks to multiple setbacks, but its head is now above water and the company is paddling hard towards a bright future.

The company is close to securing all the necessary paperwork to import new broodstock from Israel to replenish a prawn population devastated by a dwindling gene pool.

It has also secured a 35-year deal with Contact Energy’s neighbouring Wairakei Geothermal Power Station for access to vast amounts of hot water that would otherwise go to waste.

The park has been a popular place for locals and tourists for the last 30 years, with paddle boats, hot pools to soak the feet, walks along the Waikato River and, best of all, the hilarious opportunity to fish for prawns.

Prawn fishing and the sale of prawns have been the backbone - or at least exoskeleton - of the business, so when the prawn population started dwindling in early 2019, it was tough, said co-owner Richard Klein.

“About a year before Covid, we started having prawn issues and then Covid bit in and turned everything on its head and upside down and we have been clawing our way back since then.

“Our backbone is prawns and so to have issues with prawns, you would think you have broken your back at the end of the day.”

However, you don’t survive in business for 32 years without being resilient and it is not the first challenge they have beaten. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 happened at a time when they were expanding by building a new prawn farm in Iceland.

“In 2008, Iceland basically went into receivership. It was a crying shame because that project could be still going and be quite lucrative but it was a business challenge and we had to make some tough decisions and we shut it down. This was our bread and butter so I had to come back and look after [Huka Prawn Park] and make sure this survived and we did.

“We survived the GFC, we survived the Japanese crash, we survived the Korean market when that crashed in mid-90s. It has been a journey.”

Even recently, when Cyclone Gabrielle tore through Wairakei, flattening thousands of trees, closing the highway, and knocking out power, it also had an extra sting in the tail for the park with about $300,000 worth of damage to infrastructure, fortunately covered by insurance.

Klein said the lack of prawns meant people were under the impression the park was closed but it is still open for business, the restaurant was going well and it was having good success with its own breeding programme, and had just restocked one of the large ponds.

Huka Prawn Park owner Richard Klein is well on the way to restocking the park after multiple setbacks in recent years. Photo / Dan Hutchinson

It was slow going though, breeding up the population so it needed the Israeli broodstock. It just needed final clearance from the Ministry for Primary Industries to import them and it would need to build a quarantine facility to house them before it could fly the new prawns over in temperature-regulated tanks.

The company has been pushing forward with innovation and has been able to trumpet some good news, including an announcement last week that it had installed an industry-leading, low carbon heat exchange system, that allowed it to heat the equivalent of 30,000 spa pools to a temperature of 38 degrees.

Klein said the “phenomenal” amount of low carbon heat provided a multitude of opportunities for growth and development for the business and its iconic site.

The three-year joint venture with Contact Energy, has seen engineers and international manufacturers build an industry-leading heat exchange system that can handle water of up to 130C, at 5000 litres per minute, using the power station’s surplus heat.

The park has also renewed its water take and discharge consents for another 35 years, further cementing the future of the operation.

“These significant milestones and the new heat exchange system means we are another step closer to restocking our ponds with prawns and ramping up our breeding programme to achieve our end goal of having the ever popular prawn fishing back,” Klein said.

He said the new heating system meant the Huka Prawn Park team could start working on ideas for the use of the surplus hot water.

Huka Prawn Park owner Richard Klein is well on the way to restocking the park after multiple setbacks in recent years. Photo / Dan Hutchinson

“We have still got a few things up our sleeve with hot water and there is potential with other aquaculture species but also, entertainment is big. People want to be entertained and they are looking for new, unique, gimmicky things to be entertained with and by and they are prepared to pay for it.

“We are definitely going to do something with the heat.”

Prawn park for sale

The park has been on the market for the past two years, and recent developments would no doubt spur renewed interest.

Klein said they had about 105 staff before the double setbacks of prawn genetics and Covid-19, and were now operating with 35 staff but building back up all the time.

He was not planning to retire anytime soon, but wanted to do other projects.

He was in talks with two potential buyers but the park required a unique combination of tourism and engineering skills, so he was happy to go into partnership with someone that had fresh ideas to “re-imagine” the business.

“The commercial landscape has changed for this business but it still has a very very bright future and with the right company taking it on, it will go for another 50 years.”

Kein got involved in the prawn park in 1991.

It had been operating as an R&D project in the late 1980s but by the early 90s was having financial issues.

“I’d worked overseas in the oil industry – North Sea for six years - and came home with enough money for a deposit for a farm and in the early 90s farming wasn’t really the thing to invest in and someone said you should go and check out that prawn farm that someone started down there.

“I knocked on the door and the guy came to the door and he ended up becoming my partner for 25 years.”

He quickly realised they needed to get some cashflow, so the first restaurant was set up - in a tent.

“It was just an army tent. I got a keg and built a little bar and brought some prawns from the supermarket and put a sign up on the road.

“Then we started producing our own prawns and just started getting busier and busier and then built this and opened the park and that was over 30 years ago.”

The prawn farm is very capital intensive, so the development of the tourism business helped pay for the development of the aquaculture business, and it still does today.

It has the only riverside restaurant in Taupō, right next to where the jet boats leave from to take tourists up the Waikato River to the Huka Falls, plus a growing number of toys and boats for children and adults to play on in and around the ponds, plus walks through the 12ha grounds, which are leased from the Government.

All that is needed now is a new injection of prawns.