888 ABALONE FARM BREMER BAY
The abalone family Haliotidae incorporates a variety of species that thrive naturally on marine reef environments. Different Abalone species occupy reefs all around the world in both tropical and temperate settings. In Western Australia there are three species that are commercially harvested for their delicate meat. The Greenlip Abalone (Haliotis laevigata), Brownlip abalone (Haliotis conicopora) and Roei (Haliotis roei).
888 ABALONE A SHORT HISTORY
At the 888 Abalone farm in Bremer Bay, the Greenlip are commercially produced onsite and grown to market size. Farming of the Greenlip in Bremer Bay started in 2005 by two separate farms, WA Abalone and Bay Side Abalone. 888 Abalone purchased both farms in August 2010, and merged them together forming a larger single farm. Throughout the early year’s abalone farming and in general the entire aquaculture industry was young, bringing with it plenty of challenges. Land based aquaculture such as abalone farming bares the most difficulty, as Mother Nature is not often replicable. After 5 years of hard work, heavy investment and industry breakthroughs, 888 Abalone became a profitable producer of Greenlip abalone. Our product is distributed across Australia and the world as shucked, canned and snap frozen whole delicacies. Unfortunately due to biosecurity restrictions we are unable to offer tours or retail sales of our product at the farm. If you are interested in purchasing abalone, then please call the farms office (08 9837 4380) during work hours (7am till 3:30pm) for arrangements to be made. Please ensure that contact is made via the above phone number before you enter the farm’s premises. Frozen Abalone are also available for purchase from the Bremer Bay Rural & Hardware.
HOW THE ABALONE FARM WORKS
Currently the layout of the farm includes a hatchery and nursery, weaning facility and grow out tanks. All abalone are sustainably produced onsite with farmed broodstock and wild broodstock collected locally and from Flinders Bay, Augusta, WA. Broodstock are spawned from September until December through artificial induction methods which include manipulation of water temperatures and treatment with extremely clean UV water. This process prevents exposing the animal to prolonged stress and results in an incredibly delicate and tender meat that requires no further tenderising. Note that we are only allowed to freeze the abalone live because they do not possess a central nervous system. The processed abalone are exported from the farm every fortnight and distributed to markets in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Asia. 888 Abalone produces just shy of 100T/year through these various harvest and processing methods.
OCEAN GROWN ABALONE – FLINDERS BAY
Ocean Grown Abalone (OGA) are located in Flinders Bay and have been trialling ocean ranching since 2009. Today, OGA are a full scaled commercial operation with aims of producing 100T/ year. 888 Abalone produce the juvenile abalone bound for these sites and to date have sent 2.5M abalone to Flinders Bay. 888 Abalone is the only farm in Australia currently capable of sending farmed stock to the wild ranching site. Due to health regulations and disease prevention, all abalone destined for Flinders Bay are quarantined on site. 888 partake in vigorous disease testing protocols and collaborate with WA Fish Health in order to supply the juveniles to OGA on a regular basis. Abalone are purged in quarantine for a period of time before being anaesthetised and live transported to Augusta most weeks throughout the colder months. Research 888 Abalone partakes in many research projects from a variety of universities around Australia. There is constant onsite observation with the aims of further improving husbandry, growth, and general production practices. In the previous three years, 888 Abalone in collaboration with the Department of Fisheries have been re-seeding the wild Roei stocks in Kalbarri WA.
