‘We’re not trying to be McDonald’s’, Salmon boss tells MPI, minister over sector growth

Salmon production in New Zealand has the potential to grow 30-fold to almost half a million tonnes per year, the Ministry for Primary Industries told a room of aquaculture bosses in a closed-door meeting with senior minister Shane Jones this morning.

The meeting at the Ministry for Primary Industries’ (MPI) headquarters was to discuss the potential of bespoke legislation for the sector that was pitched as a cornerstone to growing the industry and increasing regulatory certainty for investors. It was attended by the chief executives of some of the country’s largest aquaculture companies, including Sealord, New Zealand King Salmon and Akaroa.

Jones, speaking to media outside the meeting room, said the sector needed a “one-stop shop” statute to grow, particularly amid increasing “anxiety” around the limits of land farming for protein, such as beef.

“There is scope for fishing, there is scope for growing other fish in New Zealand, but no one is going to spend their money unless they’re confident that they are going to secure the necessary, statutory consents which in itself is impacted by social licence,” he said.

“The initial focus is how do you create a regime for offshore ocean farming. There is no regime as such.”

Back inside the meeting room, industry bosses were optimistic but wary about the ambitious and aspirational forecast provided by MPI that their sector could potentially increase salmon production from around 15,000 tonnes per year to 450,000.

In 2024, Jones extended existing coastal permits for marine farms by 20 years, a move he told the meeting was “an extraordinarily unusual thing for a government to do” but would ultimately help increase investor certainty in the sector.

Akaroa King Salmon chief executive Stuart Hawthorn said the ambition was great and if it could be delivered on, it would lead to economic benefits beyond producing more food. He warned that care was needed to ensure the quality of New Zealand’s salmon, and the public perception of the sector, was not tainted.

“We have to make sure we are at the high end of the [global] market. We are not trying to be McDonald’s; we are trying to be a high-quality food that is good for people.”

Hawthorn said to Jones that he might like the “rough and tumble” over such issues but “I would rather avoid that in my sector”, stressing that maintaining public support and being conscious of how such growth was framed to the media was critical.

“We want the public to see aquaculture for what it is: a fantastic protein that is good for people’s health, that’s good for the planet and that’s good for our economy,” he said.

“Because if we get that right, this is a massive opportunity.”

Salmon farming in New Zealand is contentious for some people. In 2025, the sector attracted scrutiny over higher-than-expected summer mortality rates of salmon, after a complaint by animal advocacy group Safe that raised concerns over the wellbeing of the fish.

Jones said the public would not tolerate “growing mass production” of fish farming that emulated “what the Vietnamese are doing with ... tilapia fish”.

“We’re told that our salmon already captures a premium. Then if we expand the production, it needs to be driven by a belief that we can situate our final products into the upper band of affordability.”

Carl Carrington, chief executive of New Zealand King Salmon, questioned whether achieving 450,000 tonnes in annual production would include introducing other species of salmon for farming in New Zealand. Currently, only king salmon is farmed in New Zealand. MPI chief executive Ray Smith said it potentially could.

Minister for Oceans and Fisheries Shane Jones during a previous 2025 stand-up on the Wellington waterfront, where he released a consultation document on what he called “the most significant reforms” to New Zealand’s fisheries in decades. Photo / Mark Mitchell

“I think that is going to require centralised, consistent decision-making that is timely and all for government departments to be on the same agenda,” he said.

“Right now, one department will be pushing for growth – MPI – another one department will be actively trying to stop it – and I’ll call out DoC. I think all of us in the aquaculture industry has had our problems with DoC.”

Sealord chief executive Doug Paulin said the corporate was interested in salmon farming in New Zealand, as it carried out in Tasmania, but there “still is not enough certainty for us to progress that from a capital perspective in New Zealand”.

“How do you give enough certainty to that supply chain in order to convince people to spend billions of dollars? It will not be hundreds of millions of dollars for what we are talking about, it will be billions. I think if we can do that, then we will attract investment,” he said.

Broad political support, including from minor parties, was critical because “flip-flopping” on legislative decisions would only spook overseas investors, he said.

“That kind of uncertainty is, I think, the biggest [issue] – whenever regulations change, and governments make changes in that supply chain, investment disappears,” he said.

“If it happens in the infancy of trying to start your industry up ... you’d almost do your dash, and people just go to other parts of the world.”

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.