The crunch of the prawn shell as you tear it open; the crack of a sand crab as you search for flesh; the gentle tug as you pull the scallop from its half shell. These are the sounds and senses of holidays well-spent in Queensland.
However, quality seafood doesn’t only have to be for special occasions like Easter and Mother’s Day.
Thanks to the likes of Australian Seafood.com, fresh seafood caught sustainably in Queensland waters is available straight off the trawler in Bundaberg come rain, hail or shine.
With decades of seafood industry experience, owners Geoff and Sue Rogers started Australian Seafood.com following the devastating Bundaberg floods in 2013.
“I started out fishing with my father and then bought my own vessel,” Geoff said. “There was an urgent need for a flood-free seafood processing facility in the Region for fishermen to deliver to and we found that at the mouth of the Burnett River,” Geoff said. “We wanted to ensure fishermen could get their seafood to market and guarantee supply locally for consumers.”
They purchased and resurrected a rundown, unused fishing facility at the Port of Bundaberg, where they established a cold-room storage and processing facility onsite.
You’d be forgiven for thinking their industrial-looking facility is only a wholesale outlet, but don’t let the absence of a stereotypical shopfront fool you. Australian Seafood.com sells fresh seafood direct to the public: everything from prawns and bugs to squid, cuttlefish, sand crab, lobster and half-shell scallops.
Australian Seafood.com is best known for their boxed Queensland Saucer Scallops, which are available nationally through Woolworths and Costco, with some products also exported overseas.
Geoff said seafood from Wide Bay Burnett waters was highly sought after.
“While our quality seafood products are sometimes sourced from the entire length of the Queensland Coast, depending on the season and availability, most are sourced locally from the pristine waters in the Hervey Bay, Fraser and Capricorn Coasts at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef,” he said.
PHOTO: General Manager Barry Ehrke with the popular boxed Queensland Saucer Scallops. Paul Beutel Photography
Visit Australian Seafood at 146 Buss Street, Port of Bundaberg. Telephone 07 4159 4192