A staggering 62 per cent of seafood eaten in Australia is imported, prompting the CSIRO to embark on an ambitious project to find a new variety of native white-flesh fish that can be farmed sustainably.

Successful breeding trials by the national science agency and promising early market tests with chefs and consumers are encouraging.

CSIRO livestock and aquaculture research director Mat Cook said Australians ate 350,000 tonnes of seafood a year, and more than 50 per cent of that came from aquaculture.

"That number is growing. So aquaculture needs to fill that gap between wild fisheries and consumers," he said.

The agency has landed on pompano, a fish endemic in Australia, found in warmer northern waters from about Yamba in New South Wales to Exmouth in Western Australia.

"Similar species are grown overseas, and so that was one of the reasons why we chose pompano, we weren't reinventing the wheel," Dr Cook said.

Pompano a fish that ticks all the boxes

The project started in late 2019 with a long checklist before the most suitable fish was found.

At Queensland's Bribie Island facility, Polly Hilder is the lead scientist on the project.

"There's a lot of fish in Australia that tastes really good, but not all those fish can be aquaculture fish,"

Dr Hilder said.

Included in the criteria was that the fish had to be great tasting, be able to be grown quickly with a high fillet yield, and it needed to be social and not aggressive in the tanks. 

"We're really trying to see their performance metrics — how fast they grow, how they convert food to put on weight, how robust they are," Dr Hilder said.

James Kijas, a senior principal research scientist at CSIRO specialising in applied breeding, recently joined the team.

"We're now at the point where we're getting the first generation of fish that we've spawned here up to the age that they can become brood stock, and we can breed them," he said.

"It's at that point that we actually have to start being careful that we're not breeding brothers and sisters together, for example.

"So we're starting to use DNA tools to manage inbreeding in the population."

Through this careful process, the fish become domesticated, and the CSIRO team has found pompano thrive in the tanks.

"We're effectively selecting for [fish] that will perform in a production system like in tanks, because it's not their natural environment," Dr Kijas said.

How does it taste?

Prioritising taste has been key since the project's inception, with chefs and fishmongers involved from the earliest stages of development.

John Susman, a seafood strategy, marketing and sales consultant, works with some of the country's best chefs.

"With aquaculture being the future of supply as we see the reduction in wild caught seafood, it's imperative that we extend beyond the usual suspects of salmon, barramundi and Murray cod," Mr Susman said.

"To be involved in the design process of the fish from a very early stage has been a really amazing experience. And it's something that I think the CSIRO is setting as a global first."

Mr Susman arranged for pompano to be sent to top restaurants for chefs to experiment with and serve on their menu.

Martin Boetz, who runs a Thai-inspired restaurant in Brisbane, was part of the trial group.

"We've filleted it, we've grilled it, we've deep fried it, and we've also tried it raw," Mr Boetz said.

"It's got many different aspects to it and I'm really, really pleased that it can be used so many different ways.

"It's slightly oily, so it has a little bit of a stronger flavour … it will go really well in curries, and I think it will be great for the Asian market."

Scientists aim for fish on plates by 2030

The project is now halfway through and the team is optimistic pompano will reach the commercial market by the early 2030s.

Addressing the rapidly growing protein demand, which the CSIRO predicts will double by 2050, is why the national science agency is working to introduce this fish species.

"I pitched this project in 2015. It took us a while to get going, and to see the enthusiasm and the joy on the team's face each week and each month as we hit a new milestone, it's been fantastic," Dr Cook said.

While it's an ambitious project, success could mean more than just meeting the growing food demand of an expanding population. 

The CSIRO team hopes building an industry around the fish species will create new jobs while providing Australians with a delicious, sustainable meal.

"It's fantastic to see the development of new species coming into the basket of seafood that we have on offer," Mr Susman said.

Source - https://www.abc.net.au