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Hauraki Gulf mussel farms eye big lift in production
Stephen Ward
Potential for a boom in Hauraki Gulf mussel farm production has local industry and councils looking at what extra transport and processing facilities are needed to cope.
About 20,000 tonnes of mussels are currently produced annually by the farms. It has been suggested there would be another 300 jobs in the industry if production doubled.
But Hauraki development group executive director Chris Hale said production could more than triple within five years if all licensed areas in the gulf were farmed.
His group was set up by the Hauraki and Thames-Coromandel District Councils. The potential for significant industry expansion had been seen but "everyone was pointing in different directions".
"If it's going to grow it needs to do so in a pretty structured way, otherwise it'll just become a nightmare," Mr Hale said.
Key issues to be addressed included getting increased production on to land, storing equipment and where to process higher production. Most processing of gulf mussels is currently handled in Coromandel and Whitianga.
In the short term, expanding the unloading site at Sugarloaf on Coromandel Harbour was being considered, but a study was looking at whether to develop a new, "all-tide" unloading facility at Kopu, near Thames.
If that looked "solid" more research would be done, said Mr Hale. He expected the Kopu study to be complete by mid-April.
The Coromandel and Whitianga processing plants could handle a slight lift in production, he said. But other sites were being considered for a new processing facility. One is on council-owned land at Kerepehi, near where the Tanner sawmill is closing down.
Mr Hale said it was important for the local mussel industry to agree on changes. "They're not really going to boom unless there are the facilities to handle it.
"We just see huge employment opportunities for our people and we don't want to let those things disappear."
A risk to employment growth was the prices of Coromandel and Whitianga homes and rental properties, he said. | 
