From mum’s backyard shed to a multi-million dollar business
A family tradition and early beginnings
In the 1970s a Tasmanian lady named Rosalie Schwertfeger, who later became better known as “Occy Rose”, was working as a fashion model in Brisbane and decided to move back home to the coastal town of Eaglehawk Neck on the Tasman Peninsula in southeastern Tasmania to be close to her father, who was a 2nd generation commercial fisherman working on Norfolk Bay.
After working with her father in the fishing business for a few years, Rosalie saw a potential market in octopus, to which the local fishermen (including her father) laughed at her, but soon gained their respect when she started to commercially catch and sell the delicacies to the greek community in Melbourne and Sydney by the tonnes. After more than a decade of selling fresh and frozen octopus, in around 1994 she started to experiment with value-adding octopus by pickling and smoking them. This is when the brand Norfolk Bay Octopus was started, and the seed was planted for what became Norfolk Bay Gourmet Seafoods.
Over the years, Rosalie became well known in the fishing industry, and has featured in documentaries for the BBC, appeared in Woman’s Day, and has done numerous interviews for TV, magazines and newspapers.
From top left - Rosalie working as a model for Australian fashion brand Katies circa 1970, Top Right - feature article in Woman’s Day magazine September 24th 1979, Bottom Left - Notebook Magazine May 2007, Bottom Right - Norfolk Bay’s first products, Norfolk Bay Smoked Octopus 1994.
How it got to where it is today
After a career spanning 35 years in the Tasmanian fishing industry Rosalie retired after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and her son Julian Schwertfeger moved home to Tasmania from Melbourne to stay with his mother while she was having treatment (and don’t worry, Rosalie beat her cancer and is still with us today).
At that time Rosalie was still doing her pickled and smoked octopus in the backyard shed on a smaller scale as she was winding down and spending more time in the garden. Julian took over the small production and kept the local markets and shops supplied which was a big change in lifestyle from just finishing school a few years earlier and starting a new career working for Maddocks Lawyers in Melbourne.
“I always hated the smell of fish when I was a kid growing up, it was everywhere, mum was always working so hard, up at the beach or out on the fishing boat all night. Never did I ever want to work in the fishing industry either, I loved the big city energy and bright lights of Melbourne... I guess fate called me up and our family history of being in seafood in one way or another continued”.
Julian looked at scaling the value-added octopus business as there were gaps in the supermarkets that he thought could be filled with the product, and this was true however the octopus fishery was just not big enough to make a large volume business out of it. One day he got a phone call from a mussel farmer who said he liked his pickled octopus and asked if he would consider trying to value add some mussels? I guess you could say the rest was history… Julian started experimenting with the mussels and came up with some products based around the octopus varieties and then started a strategic relationship with the largest mussel farmer in Australia at the time (Spring Bay Seafoods) based at Triabunna on Tasmania’s east coast. Norfolk Bay was the buyer and value adder, and Spring Bay was the supplier and grower, it was a great partnership and created a lot of jobs in a rural area of Tasmania. https://gsbc.tas.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Media-Release-More-Jobs-for-Triabunna.pdf.
After 10 years of investment in products, plant and machinery, taking risky decisions and a hell of a lot of hard work, the scale of Norfolk Bay reached the point where they were supplying the two largest supermarkets in Australia, Woolworths and Coles, Australia wide with their value-added seafood products along with other distributors, independent chains and grocery stores.
Unfortunately in 2020, the relationship with Norfolk Bay and Spring Bay Seafoods collapsed due to the coronavirus wiping out the restaurant industry for an unsustainable period of time with extended lockdowns causing Spring Bay’s shareholders to close the mussel farm and sell the assets.
Norfolk Bay had to quickly find a solution for a new supplier and teamed up with one of the world’s largest mussel growers in New Zealand (Sanford) and started another strategic relationship selling smoked green-lip mussels into Coles and Woolworths along with their smoked prawn products.
Today and into the future Norfolk Bay Gourmet Seafoods continues to produce quality seafood products that are sold right across Australia and finds great pleasure in making products that thousands of people enjoy and appreciate every day.
Julian on the mussel farm with some Norfolk Bay Smoked Mussel products - Image used from Woolworths newspaper “local supplier campaign”
Julian Schwertfeger (left) with Woolworths Supermarkets C.E.O. Brad Banducci (Right)
Our mission
Norfolk Bay Gourmet Seafoods has been built on hard work and innovative products. We will continue to stay true to that legacy always looking into the future as to where consumer demand is headed, staying on top of the latest trends and always striving to produce the best sustainable seafood products on the market. We are proud to be a diverse employer with people in our ranks from all over the world and look forward to employing more Tasmanians and people who call Tasmania home. As we look further into time we plan to diversify our range to cater to a bigger portion of the market and make product offerings that are new and exciting. I appreciate all of our customers’ support over the years and look forward to the journey ahead with the utmost optimism.
Julian Schwertfeger / Owner - Norfolk Bay Gourmet Seafoods.