Sea Harvest Group A PROUD MEMBER OF THE SEA HARVEST GROUP

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Aqunion is the union of three well-known South African abalone businesses (Aquafarm Development, Roman Bay Sea Farm and SPP Canning), built on decades of experience and expertise.

OPERATIONS

Aqunion’s farming and processing operations are located in the beautiful coastal towns of Gansbaai and Hermanus. Here, in a clean and natural rural environment away from the hustle and bustle of city centres, we grow our abalone as close to nature as possible.

Our animals are reared in specially built tanks nourished by a pump-ashore flow-through system – providing us with 24-hour access to fresh seawater in a highly controlled scientific environment. This environment is closely monitored by our dedicated production team.

In the hatcheries, abalone is reared from fertilised eggs in a highly intensive and fragile environment. This rearing and nursing processlasts for approximately six months before the abalone is transferred to a grow-out environment. Here they spend the next two to three years in tanks, growing to a market size of 70-250g. This is a more robust environment under the blue African sky. Due to the open-air environment, the abalone experiences sun and rain just as it would in nature, and feeds off the natural algae that grows within the system, along with the feed that we provide.

lasts for approximately six months before the abalone is transferred to a grow-out environment. Here they spend the next two to three years in tanks, growing to a market size of 40-350g. This is a more robust environment under the blue African sky. Due to the open-air environment, the abalone experiences sun and rain just as it would in nature, and feeds off the natural algae that grows within the system, along with the feed that we provide.

When the abalone is ready for sale, it is transported to our processing facility or, in the case of live export, it is packed at the respective packing facilities on our farms.

PRODUCTION SITES

Romansbaai Farm

Aqunion’s premier farming site, Romansbaai Farm, was established in 1997 and following a few expansions now harvests 400 tonnes per annum, in sizes ranging up to 400g. It is a vertically integrated operation comprising breeding stock, hatchery, nursery, grow-out, harvesting and packing sections. Thirty percent of this site’s electricity is produced by on-site hydro-electric turbine and solar panels.

Buffeljags Farm

Romansbaai Farm’s sister-site Buffeljags Farm, was established in 2012 and now harvests 250 tonnes per annum, in sizes ranging up to 400g. On-site are grow-out, harvesting and packing sections. Forty percent of this site’s electricity is produced by on-site wind turbines.

Ranching

Aqunion Group companies hold the Rights to two sea-based ranching areas. Each year we take hundreds of thousands of abalone, that are born in Aqunion’s Romansbaai nursery, and place them onto natural reefs in our ranching areas. Once in the sea they continue to grow as wild, ranched abalone, eating natural seaweeds and fully exposed to the natural ocean. There are no cages, just natural reef. Here our security protects them from illegal harvest until they are harvested by our divers, 7 years later, at sizes of 400–800g. This abalone is processed through drying, freezing or canning so that our customers can deliver the best wild abalone to their clients.

PROCESSING

The Aqunion processing facility is situated in the new harbour of Hermanus. This is where live abalone is processed into the frozen, canned and dried products.

Our work force of 500 passionate people is lead by a team of dedicated professionals who are passionate about producing the best quality South African abalone products. We are also fully-committed to stringent levels of hygiene and food safety and our factory is FSSC 22000 certified. This ensures that every single product that leaves Aqunion is of the very highest standard.

MARKETING & LOGISTICS

Aqunion has a dedicated marketing team that is located on-site at our processing facility to ensure integrated systems and information flow.

Our sales team can be relied on for their in-depth knowledge of the international abalone market, having sold our products to customers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia for over 16 years. We pride ourselves on our high levels of customer service, in particular our flexible approach. We are able to accommodate most market and customer demands, and have forged lasting relationships with trusted shipping and logistics partners to ensure reliable delivery of our products.