Ric de Vries has spent a lifetime around the water. It started when an 18-year-old Ric moved to Cape Paterson and landed a job with Fisheries. That was the beginning of a love affair with the water that eventually led him to Mornington and his true passion: abalone diving.
Now 60, Ric has spent the last 30 years diving for abalone and has seen the market for the delicacy shift under his feet. “When I started out 30 years ago, all the abalone we caught was exported around the world at premium prices,” said Ric. “It was a huge, high-priced market, and we had to pay huge amounts for a fraction of a single licence to be allowed to dive for them.” “We would dive as much as we could and sell our entire catch to processors who would take it from there. They were heady days!”
But like many things, the market changed. “The Chinese managed to do what we never thought possible. They developed the technology to farm their own abalone, and the bottom completely fell out of the market,” said Ric. This, coupled with Covid, and the market Ric had spent his life servicing was gone, virtually overnight. “At one point, it seemed like we wouldn’t be able to keep diving,” said Ric. “During Covid we couldn’t sell them at all; the export market never recovered. Fisheries created small sales permits to assist with us generating income.”
But the question still remained: Who to sell the catch to? “It was my wife who had the idea. Let’s get onto social media and sell small batches to people,” said Ric. “I had no idea if it would work, but the reaction has been amazing, and now we don’t need to sell to processors at all. We sell all our catch in small batches.”
You might think that there is a limited market, and that Ric is just sustenance fishing now, but nothing could be further from the truth. “Doing it this way, we can hardly keep up with the demand,” said Ric. “So far this year we have caught and sold 13 tonnes of abalone!”
It is an unforgiving job, and one that he now shares with his 25-year-old son Liam. “The fishing grounds between Port Welshpool and Apollo Bay are closed, so the start of each trip is initially a long drive!
We usually launch the boat near Apollo Bay, so we drive down the night before and launch at sunrise,” said Ric. “We are underwater for around four to five hours and usually catch about 300 kilograms of abalone. Then it is back on the road to get home and sell our catch.”
We are underwater for around four to five hours and usually catch about 300 kilograms of abalone
Ric sells directly to the consumer, bagged and tagged, complying with the strict Fisheries regulations on trading in abalone. Prices have never been cheaper, but vary depending on the time of the year and the size of the order; selling in batches as small as one kilogram, and up to 500 kilograms.
“It is pretty simple. People order them through our social media, and we organise a time for pickup at our factory in Mornington,” said Ric. “We are trading in freshly caught seafood, so try and get it to our buyers as quicky as possible.”
And what’s the attraction for the eager consumers? “The price is great for what is a delicacy! We are cutting out the middleman and giving great fresh seafood directly to the customers,” said Ric. This approach, selling straight to the consumers, is working, and Ric is leaning into the new business model. “We’ve purchased a refrigerated truck, and we are looking at putting tanks into our factory in Mornington so we can keep alive abalone on hand more often.”
Ric hopes to get into more local restaurants, that he believes are missing the opportunity to embrace such fresh seafood. “The challenge is probably continuity of supply,” said Ric. “If it is bad weather, we can’t go out, and that means we can’t supply them on the day they need it. We’re working on that side of things to make the delivery to restaurants much smoother.”
The industry is still a tough game. Long hours, and physically draining, but Ric sees a bright future. “To be honest, I’ve got all my eggs in one basket. I need to make it work, and appreciate that customers support a local producer,” said Ric. “It might not be like the old days, but at least locals get to experience something they never had the chance to back when all the stock was heading overseas!”
Ric says he is “reinventing the wheel” with his new abalone market, and the industry appears to be taking notice. Ric’s company, Victorian Abalone Australia took out the Primary Producer Award at the Victorian Seafood Awards recently and has been nominated for the National Seafood Awards to be held this month.
“It’s hard work,” said Ric. “But I’m up for the challenge.”
As published in Peninsula Essence Magazine
