For many Australians, the experience of tucking into a succulent fresh piece of Australian fish is becoming a rare event: labeling laws are now informing the startled consumer just how much of their seafood in fact comes from somewhere else.

One man who is out to put Aussie fish back on Aussie plates is Peter Dundas-Smith, chair of the new $135 million Seafood CRC.

“We’re now facing a situation where, in many cases, Australians simply can’t get Australian fish – especially if you happen to live away from the big fish markets. Retailers, too, are saying they can’t get the fish they want locally.

“At the same time we are still dumping a lot of perfectly good fish over the side of the boat,” Peter says.

Bycatch or byproduct (as it is more correctly referred to in this context) and what to do with it or how to minimise it, continues to challenge the fishing industry, but Peter is convinced the Seafood CRC can play a significant role in helping to solve it.

“A lot of it is to do with supply chains and getting a better appreciation of the potential value of fish.  For example, silver warehou; you’ve got some fishermen who can’t sell silver warehou – and you’ve got others who are putting it into top restaurants at premium prices.  Clearly there are two completely different supply chains, maybe many, and we need to understand why and how they operate and where the opportunities are.”

The Seafood CRC is out to make a difference by analyzing those supply chains and not only working out how to make them more efficient and profitable, but actually proving the new approaches work in the real world, he says.

“A recent study of the south- east fishery showed that there is up to seven steps between the harvesting of the seafood and the consumer’s plate.  We think there is scope to eliminate or streamline an awful lot of those,” he adds, citing the case of some locally-caught whiting which are currently being shipped to Thailand for filleting and packing, then returned to Australia.  “It finishes up a great product, but why can’t we develop the capacity to process it cost effectively in Australia?” he asks.

“Today you’ve got top operators in the industry who are demonstrating how to do just that, and the CRC is working with them to extend those ideas and approaches to the wider industry.  It’s one of the great advantages of having 25 partners, mainly from industry.

“The goal is to design and test state-of-the-art seafood chains that get fish to the consumer in the best possible condition, the least time and at the most advantageous price for everyone.

“We’ll use the CRC’s science to reduce the risk which industry players would ordinarily face in trying out new approaches to delivering seafood to customers.”

The challenge for the CRC will be to remain flexible enough in its R&D planning to accommodate the needs of industry. “Seafood producers need constant flexibility to respond to change in markets, policies or technology – whereas researchers need relative stability in order to solve the problems and answer the questions they are set. The trick is managing these two, sometimes conflicting, priorities – flexibility versus predictability.”

To handle this process, Peter promises the CRC will remain ‘lean and mean”, with only a handful of professional staff, and a lot of its work outsourced, including the administrative side which he predicts will be handled by FRDC under a performance agreement.

The new Seafood CRC will be headquartered in Adelaide but, like most CRCs, will have research nodes all round Australia addressing  regional as well as national issues.

Julian Cribb is adjunct professor of science communication at the University of Technology, Sydney and edits R&D Review and ScienceAlert.