Thousands replace divisive Aussie product with NZ alternative: 'Should've changed earlier'

Yahoo

12-03-2025

A major food delivery app is ditching a controversial Aussie product and switching to a New Zealand alternative. Box Divvy, which supplies close to 13,000 households with fresh produce, announced it will no longer be selling Tasmanian farmed salmon due to concerns about sustainability and transparency.
It's been a horror month for the local salmon industry, with over 1 million dying following a bacterial outbreak, and pictures showing dead salmon rotting inside pens and washing up on beaches. The RSPCA has also dropped its accreditation of Huon, one of the three major companies that operate around the island state, due to ethical concerns over 'inhumane' handling of live, sick and injured fish.
Box Divvy facilitates online sales of food co-ops across NSW and ACT, and markets itself to consumers who want to avoid the major supermarkets and support farmers. Co-founder Anton van den Berg told Yahoo News the company had been feeling 'uncomfortable' about the industry for years, and after suppliers visited salmon farms across the ditch it was impressed with their methods.
'The industry has been promising to improve its sustainability and impact on the environment but the reality has been it's not really happening,' he said.
Related: Is farmed salmon safe to eat?
Conservationists have long warned about the impact of the industry on Tasmania's waterways, and the potential for it to harm the state's clean, green food image. In Macquarie Harbour, on the west coast, the industry's impact on water quality has been directly linked to the near extinction of the native Maugean skate. Although Coles and Woolworths market salmon farmed in this area as 'sustainable'.
In Australia, wild salmon is not widely available in stores because all commercial species are native to the Northern Hemisphere.
Last week, Uni Melbourne aquaculture expert Professor Giovanni Turchini told Yahoo there are few environmental differences in the farming of salmon in Australia or New Zealand, both of which are locally available.
'They are fundamentally farmed in similar ways and fed with the same feed. But please note as usual, the environmental impact of any farm activity, including salmon, is fundamentally determined by how the farm is managed,' he said.
Box Divvy's supplier was impressed with the sustainability focus of the specific farms in New Zealand it visited. Another factor it considered is that Monterey Bay Aquarium's internationally renowned Seafood Watch program recommends the product.
Dropping Australian salmon, rather than slowly migrating away came with some risk, as the product had been its biggest seafood seller. But the decision proved to be immediately beneficial for its bottom line, indicating it was what its customers wanted.
'Our sales are up over 15 to 20 per cent even though the New Zealand product is slightly more expensive,' van den Berg said.
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Now that the company has moved away from Australian grown salmon, it's unlikely to buy it again without major change. Another factor informing its decision is that the major farming operations are now owned by large foreign companies.
'With hindsight we probably should have changed earlier,' he said.
'How they run the industry in the end is up to them. That's how the market functions.
'But if consumers are voting with their feet, then I think they're going to reach a point where they're going to have to decide what they're going to prioritise. If they're simply going to chase the dollar, then they might find in the long run, they are not going to have a viable business.'
Industry peak body Salmon Tas declined to comment on Box Divvy's decision.
In a statement released on social media overnight, Huon's general manager of stakeholder relations said the disease outbreak was unprecedented.
'It's really important to understand that this mortality is not caused by farming practices, it is the result of a disease outbreak,' she said.
Addressing its loss of RSPCA accreditation, she said the incident was 'not reflective of the high standards' of which Huon usually operates.
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