Clean Seas Seafood Ltd is an Australian seafood production company specialising in the sea-cage aquaculture of Yellowtail kingfish (Seriola lalandi). It was established by The Stehr Group in 2000, and became the first Australian company fish farming in South Australia to be listed on the ASX in 2005. The company was established by "tuna baron" Hagen Stehr, whose son Marcus (as of 2018) remains one of the company's directors. Clean Seas has shore and sea-based fish farming facilities at Arno Bay, aquaculture leases in Fitzgerald Bay and near Port Lincoln and a processing facility at Royal Park in Adelaide. Its tuna interests were originally held by the private company Australian Tuna Fisheries Pty Ltd. Clean Seas' ambition to control and commercialise the lifecycle of the Southern bluefin tuna has not been realised.
History
Australian Tuna Fisheries Pty Ltd was registered in 1963. In the year 2000 it was renamed The Stehr Group and established Clean Seas.
The company successfully controlled the life-cycle of the Yellowtail kingfish and invested substantial research and development effort in trying to achieve the same for the Southern bluefin tuna from 2005 onwards. The company suffered unsustainable stock losses of its Yellowtail kingfish between 2009 and 2011 after which the company suspended its Southern bluefin tuna breeding project in 2012. The company has posted significant annual losses in many financial years, and has had it social license challenged by recreational fishers and Spencer Gulf residents due to its handling of kingfish escapes, garbage, pollution and shared use facilities, including the Point Lowly North marina. Conversely, the company has won various awards and accreditations that acknowledge their product and market development achievements and its founder has an Order of Australia Medal and is a member of the Australian Seafood Hall of Fame.
Southern bluefin tuna
In 2005, Clean Seas was awarded an AUD $4 million grant from the Australian Government to develop a system for the land-based production of young Southern bluefin tuna. Clean Seas Tuna Ltd was floated on the ASX that year, with the ambition of controlling the lifecycle of the Southern bluefin tuna. In March 2007, the company announced it has successfully stimulated the release of sperm in a captive Southern bluefin tuna and captured it on video. Further developments were announced in 2008, with Stehr stating that the development "will give us a sustainable blue fin industry, that nobody around the world will be able to attack us in the future." Clean Seas announced that they had closed the lifecycle of the Southern bluefin tuna after successfully producing eggs from captive mature fish. They airlifted mature fish into their land-based facility at Arno Bay in May for breeding purposes. By mid-2009, the company had raised young Southern bluefin tuna to roughly 20 cm long, and members of the Norwegian aquaculture sector were expressing interest in their progress. In March 2010, ASIC investigated Clean Seas for failing to disclose the deaths of Southern bluefin tuna fingerlings to the market. The company said that the fingerlings were not of material value and that the breeding program was ongoing.
The company's efforts appeared in the documentary film Sushi - The Global Catch. Research and development was eventually discontinued as the company had difficulty raising the larvae which have complex water temperature requirements, eat each other and injure themselves in captivity. The company officially suspended its Southern bluefin tuna propagation research as a cost-cutting measure after it revealed it had made a $34 million statutory loss for the last half of 2012. In February 2013, Stehr remained optimistic about Clean Seas' future prospects for closing the life-cycle of the Southern bluefin tuna.
Yellowtail kingfish development
In 2006, Clean Seas struck a deal to export Yellowtail kingfish to Russia. The following year, a deal to stock Yellowtail kingfish in Sainsbury's supermarkets in the United Kingdom was finalised. The company was optimistic that it could achieve spawning of Southern bluefin tuna the following year. The company was also attempting to accelerate the Yellowtail kingfish's growth by artificially increasing water temperature for fish held in tanks at Arno Bay.
In 2008, Stehr told the ABC that he had expansion plans for the company. He said "We got the marina [in] close proximity to Adelaide, and it is a natural progression for our company to move that side... We either move to Wallaroo or direct to Adelaide."