2009 Seafood Industry Awards

On Friday night the South Australian Womens Industry Network Seafood Community ran the Seafood Industry biennial awards dinner.  What a night for some of my clients!  Of the 9 awards, three were won by my clients or former clients. 

The really special one was Glen Hill, a fisherman and processor from the Lakes and Coorong fishery near the River Murray mouth. who won the award for South Australia’s Leading Seafood Producer.  Let me tell you his Coorong mullet in the entrées tasted divine!  They are part of the world’s first diverse species Marine Stewardship certified fishery and have almost completed their ISO 14001 certification.  This fishery is under enormous pressure from recreational fishers because it is so relatively close to Adelaide.  Glen told me that the work he was doing with me was what made the difference and won the award.

Hagen Stehr won the award of Icon of the Fishing Industry.  I worked with Hagen for six years, getting him ISO 14001, ISO 9001 and AS/NZS 4801 (safety) certified and also implemented HACCP with them.  I recommended that he build his own hatchery, encouraged him to think about closing the tuna lifecycle and acted as the change agent when he bought the then rough and ready, now publicly listed Clean Seas hatchery, located well north of Port Lincoln and helped him to bring them into the Stehr Group and become part of a common culture.  Congratulations Hagen!

Southern Rock Lobster’s Clean Green program pipped me into no 1 spot for the environment award.  They are yet another client.  I helped them to turn their wonderful on-boat and traceability system in to an auditable system.

And I was a finalist in 2 awards – the environment and training awards.  All in all a very good night!  The food, wine and conversation at the black tie dinner were excellent also.  There are some extraordinarily nice people in the fishing industry who deeply care for the environment because they are so connected with it and dependent on it.  I so much enjoy working with businesses that really care.