Akaroa King Salmon marks 40 years with a feast
Chefs, founders, partners and friends gathered on Banks Peninsula to celebrate the world's smallest ocean-based salmon farm
Akaroa King Salmon celebrated 40 years of farming in Akaroa Harbour on Sunday 20 September with a pōwhiri at Ōnuku Marae and a long lunch cooked by chefs Rex Morgan, Craig Martin and Josh Hunter, bringing together over 200 guests, including founders Tom and Duncan Bates, staff, chefs, and customers who travelled from around New Zealand, Australia and Singapore.
In 1986 the Bates family harvested their first King Salmon grown in Akaroa Harbour. Back then it went to local chefs, delivered to Akaroa Wharf by the Canterbury Cat team. Today the business has over 100 staff, a smokehouse and factory shop in Wigram, and a hatchery fed by spring water in Rotherham, North Canterbury, and its salmon is on the menu at Michelin restaurants from Christchurch to New York. Throughout its history, locals have still been able to buy it direct from the wharf in Wainui and from their shop in Wigram.
The day began with a pōwhiri, welcoming guests onto Ōnuku Marae. Ōnuku Rūnanga, mana moana of Akaroa Harbour, are owners of Akaroa King Salmon alongside the founding Bates family, Ngāti Porou, and Archipelago Capital, making the partnership 100% New Zealand owned. It remains the only exporter of salmon in the country to be so.
Lunch leaned on local food, prepared by three celebrated Māori chefs. Rex Morgan, recipient of Cuisine magazine’s Legend Chef award for 2026 and the chef behind Wellington's legendary Citron and Boulcott Street Bistro, cooked alongside Banks Peninsula chef Craig Martin of Native Kitchen and Josh Hunter, head chef of Food by Fire. Josh brought the whole Food by Fire team out to the marae and developed the menu with Ngaire Tainui, head of catering at Ōnuku. Akaroa King Salmon was served in a variety of ways, marinated as ika mata, wood-roasted, karengo-cured, and as a smoked dip served with fry bread. Tables were also filled with freshly shucked oysters, green-lipped mussel toroi, fire grilled meats, and a classic steamed pudding to finish.
Among the guests were chefs from famous restaurants like Michelin-starred Ahi in Auckland, local legends Bar Yoku, Earl, Xolo, Ma Maison and Roca, and more. Christchurch City Councillor for Banks Peninsula Tyrone Fields said, “Forty years they’ve been producing salmon of the highest quality in the incredible Akaroa Harbour, and gee, what a lunch!” He was joined by David Ormsby, Regional Director South Island at Te Puni Kōkiri, Hare Pitama of NZTE, Tanya Stevens of Ngāi Tahu and former New Zealand Chefs Association president Graham Hawkes, along with locals from Wainui and Akaroa. Founders Tom and Duncan Bates celebrated too, with current and past staff from the farm, hatchery, and processing teams.
Guests also received a small book documenting the farm's 40-year history with pictures showing how the team once lived in a cabin built next to the farm in Lucas Bay. It contains excerpts from the hut diary (recorded when feeding the fish consisted of rowing out to the earliest pens) and documents the many ups and downs over the years, from sabotage to storms, and how support from the local community and dedicated staff kept them going.
Forty years on, Akaroa King Salmon is a Māori partnership, 100% New Zealand owned, and showcasing New Zealand produce on the world stage. The drive Tom and Duncan started with, still runs through the farm. It was the first King Salmon farmer in the world to replace wild-caught fish oil with fermented algae in its feed, it is the only King Salmon farmer with Global Technical Recognition for sustainable aquaculture from the United Nations FAO, and it farms at less than 2% stocking density with no antibiotics. That work puts the farm at the forefront of sustainability, and its King Salmon is celebrated on menus at top restaurants worldwide, including Michelin-starred Ahi and Inati right here in New Zealand.