A passion for safety and skills training produced valuable networking opportunities for one Victorian fishing business.
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Entrepreneur: Lyn Warn, Marketing Director
Company: FWD Abalone Pty Ltd
Business type: Abalone processing and marketing
Founded: 1982
Turnover: $2M - $10M
Head office: Queenscliff, Victoria
Contact details: +61 3 5258 3563
The FWD Abalone Story
FWD Abalone is widely recognised as one of the most successful and innovative of Victoria’s 16 licensed abalone processors. It was established in 1982 by Tassie and Lyn Warn, who have since shepherded their business through a dynamic and constantly changing market.
In 1985, FWD Abalone captured a key part of the world abalone market. The company now exports canned, frozen and live abalone to Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Australia supplies 80% of the world’s wild-catch abalone to Asia. Lyn says: “It’s quite a niche [market] and that’s why we need to watch our [abalone] resource and to manage it, because we are the last remaining frontier. Nobody else has looked after theirs.”
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Key learning points:
Becoming involved at an industry-wide level can benefit you and your business by:
- Increasing learning opportunities.
- Improving contacts and networking.
- Providing opportunities to influence government policy-making and practice, thereby producing industry-wide effects.
- Overseeing the development of industry training curriculum and standards.
- Enhancing your reputation as an industry leader in the industry, among the media.
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Lyn is committed to developing the Australian seafood industry and is a member of various industry committees and forums. Since 1994, she has been a board member of Seafood Industry Victoria, the peak industry lobbying body in that state, and is currently its vice-chair. One of her main interests is ensuring that the seafood industry has adequate enforcement in place.
Lyn says: “We are always fighting for more enforcement on the ground against poachers. It’s a huge problem that can be tackled with legislation but when government doesn’t tackle it the right way, we need to push them in the right direction. Mexico and California wiped their [abalone] catch out many years ago because there were no legislative provisions in place. Australian fisheries agencies and the fisherman themselves have seen evidence of this and have made sure that [they] keep a close watch on what we have here.”
Lyn participates in state and national seafood industry forums including the Australian Seafood Industry Council (ASIC), the National Seafood Training Committee and the Committee for Seafood Service in Victoria. In these groups one of her main tasks has been to focus attention on the need for better skills training in the fishing industry.
She says: “For many years, we have fallen behind with training in our industry - fishermen and crew lack training skills and even basic skills. It has been the culture in the industry but it is certainly causing major problems when you take crews to sea. On the processing side, unskilled people are coming all the time looking for work. We are never going to lift the quality in our industry if we don’t put effort into the people we employ.”
ASIC, supported by all Australian State seafood industry bodies, approached the Australian National Training Authority for funding to put together a national seafood industry training package. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Warren Truss, launched the Seafood Industry Training Package in March 2000.
Lyn says: “At FWD, we do a lot of on-the-job training [for which] the training provider comes to the workplace. Our employees are much more motivated to learn new skills as they can see immediate application of the training. The new [Seafood Industry] Training Package will be a huge step forward in promoting job-related training.”
Although participation in these industry bodies leaves her little time to use her commercial fishing licence, Lyn views it as a worthwhile sacrifice. There are spin-offs too. Lyn says: “[We have] learnt a lot from participating at the industry level. The pleasure is being out networking with different people and making contacts. I am keen to play a part in shaping the direction our industry needs to go. To do this, I must have input into the broader decision-making.”