Australia’s seafood Industry is still reeling from the impacts of the Australia-China trade riff.
To support the industry, Seafood Industry Australia (SIA) is asking Aussies to switch one meal for local seafood.
“It’s been a hard year for Australia’s seafood industry and now our lobster producers have been dealt another blow,” says SIA CEO, Veronica Papacosta.
“As an industry, we’re calling on Aussies to switch one meal a week to Australian seafood in a bid to support our industry.
Ms Papacosta continues by saying that if 1% of the population committed to changing just one meal to locally-sourced Australian seafood, that would be more than 250,000 meals of Aussie seafood on a plate.
This includes prawns, salmon or snapper.
“For the festive season we’re asking consumers to change just one protein-meal to Australian seafood like our stunning rock lobster, a few dozen fresh oysters, a big, beautiful bowl of prawns or replace a roast with a whole, baked Australian fish.
“This could mean the difference between a fisher making or missing a mortgage payment, and a boat heading out of harbour or spending another week docked.”
Seafood Trade Advisory Group Chair, Nathan Maxwell-McGinn says, “We are working hard to cook and chill as much lobster as we can, but it’s just not infrastructure we currently have.
“We have a processing issue, and we are trying to pivot and fix it as fast as we can, so we can get our lobsters onto Australian family tables in time for Christmas.
“Our major supermarkets account for 60% of at-home seafood consumption sales. As drivers of volume, we’d love to hear from them about how they can help us get more Aussie lobsters onto tables.”
Ms Papacosta says that they have created a lobster function on the Great Australian Seafood Fish Finder that allows consumers to search by postcode for retailers stocking Australian lobster near them.