Project number: 2022-157
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure: $169,000.00
Principal Investigator: Janet Howieson
Organisation: Curtin University
Project start/end date: 12 Feb 2024 - 31 Jul 2025
Contact:
FRDC

Need

The WA commercial herring fishery recently reopened following improvements in the stocks sustainability assessments. The product has traditionally been predominantly used for bait. This project, in partnership with herring producers, processors and retailers, will commence with a historical and current status review and consultation to better understand barriers and opportunities for commercial success of herring products for human consumption. Review of the commercial success or otherwise of similar underutilised species (such as Australian Salmon) will also be included. From this review, it is intended to identify, develop and implement three new retail and/or food service opportunities for herring for human consumption. Such opportunities, informed by the review, may be new product based (incorporating alternate processing strategies and/or 100% utilisation principles) or focussed on new marketing strategies. Evaluation for future commercial success will be economic, logistical and technical and will use evaluation metrics developed in previous projects. An enhanced use of herring for human consumption may not only increase profitability but may also lead to greater stock access for fishers. A framework for improving commercial success of such underutilised species research projects(reported in FRDC 2017/185) may be further extended by the study.

Objectives

1. 1. Identify options to value add and (where possible) fully utilise the Australia Herring through the human consumption market
2. 2. Investigate, implement and evaluate up to three human consumption market opportunities for Australian Herring-based products
3. 3. Document and extend the developed supply chain framework methodology to get proposed new products to the market and explain how it can be replicable for other similar underutilised / lesser-known species

Related research

Industry
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