Hayley Abbott from Narooma has been nominated for the WFI Insurance Small Business Achiever Award, one of seven categories in the NSW/ACT Young Achiever Awards.
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The NSW/ACT Young Achiever Awards recognises and celebrates the positive achievements of young individuals in NSW and ACT communities. The awards are proudly supported by the NSW Government.
Ms Abbott, 26, has been working on family fishing boats since she was age 8, only taking time off for school and to complete a business degree in the USA where she attended university on a soccer scholarship.
After four years away from Australia, her family and the ocean, she knew where she wanted to be, so she returned home with some ideas and began a new business processing and selling the seafood that her family caught, directly to the public.
Her two brothers, Todd and Ryan, are fully qualified skippers and run the family longline boat which works in the Eastern Tuna and Billfish Fishery.
Her father John has a NSW state boat that works in the coastal waters around Narooma, and her mum Vicki is the backbone of the family and keeps the show on the road.
The family business was started by her grandparents, Dot and Des Creighton, out of Narooma, in 1949 after Des bought his first fishing licence for just two pounds.
Over 68 years, her grandfather and father worked many different fisheries including handlining fish like kingfish, snapper, flathead and sharks, beach hauling salmon and mullet, poling southern bluefin tuna, processing and exporting scallops to the USA in the 1970s, lobster trapping, drop lining fish, and now longlining fish such as tuna, swordfish and marlin.
Ms Abbott started up Narooma Seafood Direct in 2013 as a side business to the primary fishing business. The whole objective was to generate new markets and create employment for family members so that they could stay in the local area.
Prior to her new business, the family was selling most of their catch to wholesalers, and the prices they were getting were barely covering costs.
They began offering seafood at the farmers markets, which works because they never know what they will or will not catch when fishing so it allowed them to sell what they have available that week, without having to outlay money on stock.
They receive weekly feedback from their customers, which allows them to continually evaluate what they are doing and how they can do it better; and they were the only seafood stallholder that actually caught their own fish, processed them and sold directly to the public.
They have also encouraged the market owners, managers and customers to inspect their boats and facilities.
They have managed to turn their business around by reconnecting with the people who buy their fish at farmers markets like the one in Canberra.
It put them back in control of their business, what was offered and charged, and gave them a local face, helping them become an important part of their local community.
“Storytelling and connecting with people is key to their success,” Ms Abbott said. “People go away and remember you, they tell their friends, they come back.”
Now the business is going so well the family has just taken delivery of a new, massive, state-of-the-art catamaran, as they seek to keep up with demand. For Hayley Abbott the local community and consumers will stay central to their business for the foreseeable future.
Finalists is the NSW/ACT Young Achiever Awards will be presented and winners announced at an awards gala presentation dinner in April 2018.
Category winners will each receive $2500 from Masonicare and a magnificent trophy.
One of the seven category winners will be announced by the NSW Government as the NSW/ACT Young Achiever of the Year and will receive $5000 from Masonicare and a trophy.