| 61 T T Hugh de Lacy Seaweed becomes successful sideline The seaweed flares up from late winter, only to disappear in late December, and is harvested during the five months in between. PRODUCTION Southern Clams An invasive marine species of kelp that’s been declared an unwanted organism under the Biosecurity Act is proving a promising sideline to Dunedin seafood company Southern Clams Ltd. The seaweed is called Undaria pinnatifida but is better known to its vast global fan-base by its Japanese name, wakame, and is sought after in its dried form for the high levels it contains of iodine and tyrosine, elements that are essential for healthy thyroid function. Southern Clams, whose principal business is harvesting and selling Littleneck Clams, has for the past six years been selling wakame by way of an Auckland processer into an exclusive high-end global culinary niche market that values its purity above its price. The operation was last year calved off into a subsidiary company, Southern Seaweeds (NZ) Ltd, which has its own website: www.southernseaweed.com. But with wakame declared the equivalent of a noxious weed in New Zealand, Southern Clams is only able to harvest the pest in parts of the South Island coast because of a special permit obtained under a far-sighted 2012 government determination to allow its farming around Wellington Harbour, the Marlborough Sounds and Banks Peninsula coastlines. A native of Japan, wakame was first recognised in New Zealand waters in the 1980s, thought to have got here in ships’ ballast water, and it has since been spread from Stewart Island to the far North by fouling on boat hulls, and by marine farming equipment. Pest or not, it’s here to stay, and Southern Clams is making a virtue of a vice. The seaweed flares up from late winter, only to disappear in late December, and is harvested during the five months in between. After harvesting, the Otago Harbour wakame is washed at the company’s Dunedin factory, then chilled, assessed and sorted to meet customer requirements, be they fresh, dried or frozen. While it’s a high-quality human food, wakame is also sold by Southern Clams to be processed into pet food, or as a fertiliser enhancer for horticultural and agricultural applications. “We’re harvesting more every year as we get better at collecting and refining it,” Southern Clams’ Domestic Sales and Marketing Manager, Richard Ellwood says. The company was founded in 1983 by the late Roger Belton – he died in March this year – who spent 30 years researching and developing alternative New Zealand primary product industries, mainly seafoods but also horticultural and forestry. Roger built the company around the Littleneck Clams living in the cold waters of the Otago coast, refining harvest operations and carrying out research that had the company recognised as a pioneer in environmental sustainability. He developed a new type of body dredging system for collecting the clams that, though more labour-intensive than the standard machine dredging system, minimises the disturbance to the marine environment. Under a systematic rotational harvesting system also developed by the company, Southern Clams collects just 7% of the claims available in the harvest areas. To transport the clams to markets round the world that can’t get enough of them, the company did away with the standard energy-greedy polystyrene boxes and replaced them with cardboard boxes, which proved not only a cost-saver but were recyclable. “We’re in the position with the clams where we could sell a lot more than we harvest – but that’s a nice place to be,” Richard says. “We’re harvesting more every year as we get better at collecting and refining it.” CoolLogic - Proud to support Southern Clams
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