Key takeaways
When buying new equipment or a tech solution, a local business will be better placed to understand your pain points - so look for solutions close to home first.
A Northland oyster farming business is integrating Kiwi technology into its operation to improve productivity, while also making it more resilient to extreme weather after being impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Taniwha Oysters was one of the country’s aquaculture businesses hit hard by Gabrielle when it blew into Northland in February 2023.
Co-owners Pene, Lanice Waitai and Lanice’s brother Xavier Dromgool estimate they lost about $200,000 worth of their farmed Pacific oysters in the storm.
The business normally produces an annual 3.6 million oysters for domestic and export markets.
The ten-year-old business typically uses wooden frames and sticks built into tidal areas, where the oysters are submerged at high tide and exposed at low tide.
“In the storm, the oysters just got beaten off the stick, fell on the ground and got eaten by whatever was there,” says Pene.
FlipFarm Systems has improved the farming process for Taniwha Oysters
Looking for a solution that would protect their oysters in bad weather, the business owners found a new oyster farming system which had been developed by a Marlborough startup.
FlipFarm Systems were launched in 2020 and its customers now stretch as far as Maine, in the USA.
The system uses individual oyster baskets linked together on a rope with buoyancy tanks keeping them floating just below the water’s surface. The oysters are fully secured in severe weather and can’t be knocked into the water.
The cages are flipped, harvested or re-filled using specially-designed equipment which is towed alongside an oyster barge.
“Labour-wise, a job that four to six guys would normally do, is now done by three guys comfortably, “ Pene says.
Another advantage of the FlipFarm system is that the oysters in the FlipFarm baskets grow much faster than those on sticks because they are kept just below the water’s surface at all times, which gives them access to more food.
At this stage Taniwha Oysters is using the FlipFarm system for about 10% of its oyster operation, and in December the business invested in more FlipFarm bags.
“It has got a bright future - hopefully we can operate our farms with 50% FlipFarming and 50% original, which would give us a bit of versatility,” Xavier says.
Using the FlipFarm method of farming will potentially extend the season, the business owners say. It will create more consistent cash flow for the business and will keep workers employed for longer, says Pene.
“We have got a good supply this year and we’ll be harvesting from the start of winter through to summer,” he says.
Resilience is key to this Kiwi-grown solution and for securing finance
The FlipFarm system helps to make the oyster industry more resilient to extreme weather and this was one aspect that allowed Taniwha Oysters to fund the equipment with a low-interest loan from ANZ.
ANZ New Zealand CEO Antonia Watson was happy to try the Northland oysters on a visit to Taniwha Oysters in September last year, and gave them a big thumbs up.
“Through discounted lending we’ve been able to help our business customers remove some of the cost barrier - to make it a little bit easier for them to rebuild and invest,” says Antonia.
“The kind of weather we saw during Gabrielle will continue to have a huge impact on our farmers and growers, so it’s great to have been able to help finance the changes they need to future-proof their business,” she says.
In 2024 the aquaculture industry generated around $760 million in annual revenue and this is estimated to grow to $3 billion in annual sales by 2035.