In a world hungry for healthy sustainable protein, WA’s western rock octopus is a rising star.
It’s wild caught, all natural and has no adverse impact on the environment, according to the Fremantle Octopus company’s general manager Emma Davison.
“Octopus has more iron and more protein than red meat,” Ms Davison said.
“A health-conscious person that’s wanting to increase their protein content and iron and are concerned about the land-based proteins and are considering an alternative protein, octopus is that alternative protein.”
The Fremantle company dominates the relatively new octopus fishery. About 70 per cent of its current market is for raw tentacles favoured by high-end restaurants.
Ms Davison said there was potential for the industry to expand sales currently worth about $20 million a year to $80 million.
Chef Scott Bridger has had octopus on the menu of his North Fremantle restaurant since it opened 11 years ago.
“The old perception of it being rubbery and really tough, really is going out the door,” Mr Bridger said.
“It’s one of our best-selling dishes here, people just love it.
“I mean it’s caught in these waters out here for us, it’s like eating pasta in Rome.
“When you come to the beach in Fremantle have some octopus.”
‘Rock star’ of the ocean
The in-demand mollusc is the rock star of Australia’s commercial fishing industry.
The species’ scientific name is O.djinda, which means star in the language of the Noongar people of WA’s south-west.
Since it was established as a managed fishery in 2015 the annual catch has increased by 400 per cent.
It’s commonly found between Shark Bay in the state’s mid-west and Esperance in the south-east.
At about 450 tonnes a year the catch is still small compared to the global harvest.
About 400,000 tonnes a year is caught worldwide, mostly as by-catch for Moroccan and Chinese trawl fisheries.
The western rock is currently one of only two octopus fisheries globally to be independently certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.
Finding octopus in the depths
The fishery stretches from the Abrolhos islands off Geraldton to Augusta where the Indian and Southern oceans meet and is mostly in depths down to 50 metres.
Government fisheries scientists and industry stakeholders hope to get a $650,000 grant from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.
The funding would be used to investigate expanding into waters up to 100m deep on the west coast and in the relatively unexplored Southern Ocean.
A small fishery already exists at Esperance but WA’s Department of Fisheries scientist Lachlan Strain said there was huge potential to expand the current catch to deeper waters.
“There’s a lot of available habitat out there for this fishery to operate in,” Dr Strain said.
“They only live for about a year and a half and they’re a highly fecund species that works really well in adapting to climate change.
“So there’s no issues with it at the moment.”
The Marine Stewardship Council’s Asia Pacific program manager Matt Watson said expansion would not impact on the fishery’s sustainability status.
He said only 13 per cent of the available fishing ground was currently being exploited.
“There’s plenty of space to grow into. We just need to make sure the management is safeguarding the fishery if there are any future uncertainties in that performance,” Mr Watson said.
Watch ABC TV’s Landline at 12:30pm on Sunday or on ABC iview.
