Sealord The Wounded Phoenix

Noleen Burton and NZ Sea Products Administration Manager, Peter Exnevad, December 1966

It was with a sense of déjà vu that I read in the Nelson Mail on Saturday March 14 2009^1:  ‘More jobs to get the chop’ and going on to say ‘160 process workers and 29 salaried staff at ‘Sealord’ to be made redundant’; then, on  March 19² and 21³,  reporting rallies held to try and stave off the inevitable.  Added to the already lost mussel division jobs last year, it paints a grim picture for our city with job losses. Other large firms are also experiencing a downtown adding to the job loss tally, but ‘Sealords’ is one of the most far reaching.

Back to the beginning. After my return to New Zealand and Nelson from my big "O.E." to Europe and Britain with my husband in the middle 1960’s, I applied and secured a position in late 1966 with the fledgling fishing industry firm New Zealand Sea Products,  which was poised to revolutionise fishing in Nelson and beyond. I was general everything, there being only a few staff to begin with, but mainly wage clerk and office worker. One of the first things to organise was curtains around the office windows. You name it, I did it.

NZ Sea Products Factory, Nelson, December 1966
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The wages were all hand done on the old Kalamazoo system, pound shillings and pence of course. An office boy (Jim, real name Alan but we already had an Alan) was employed to help me. Wednesday nights we had to finalise the wages, do the coining (all cash in those days) and send Jim down in his FJ Holden to pick up the money from the bank next day. This was factory wages. When the trawlers began, wages would be worked out and paid when they came into port. I wasn’t privy to salaried staff wages until my boss Per (a Norwegian)  who did them,  couldn’t balance his books at tax time the first year and asked me to do it. After correcting compensating errors in them, all done - both the factory wages and salaries!

Sea Harvester trawlers, October 1968
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We all stood on the wharf and watched the two big Sea Harvester trawlers, which had originated in Trondheim Norway, arrive at different times ready to begin. After the arrival of the trawlers, the whole operation began to mushroom, with jubilation at the first overseas sales. All factory staff were allocated a free half pound of fish per family member per week. Smoked fish and fish meal production began also. More office staff were employed (thank goodness, my typing was indifferent to say the least). The future looked rosy. I organised enjoyable staff functions too. 

Decimal currency arrived on 10^th July 1967. A Sea Harvester was due early morning  on that date, so I spent all the weekend before checking the conversion of wages to decimal currency. Early Monday morning 10^th July, Jim in his trusty Holden collected the first ever decimal currency wages to be paid out in New Zealand, at 10 o’clock. That fact was reported nationally. Naturally, everyone wanted to see the new money and swarmed around me as I counted. One young lad later brought his back after payment saying he wanted real money.

NZ Sea Products, final pay, October 1968
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I had a short break when I thought psychiatric nursing might be my career (mostly because my Dad wouldn’t let me when I left school) but soon returned. As fate would have it I was there at the firm’s demise into receivership in October 1968.  After a few false starts ‘Sealord ‘ was later born, to become a very successful company.

Note
The Company started as New Zealand Sea Products Export Ltd. in 1965. The first factory opened in Port Nelson on February 1967, with the arrival of the trawlers Sea Harvester I and II. The Company lost money quickly and was forced into receivership. The premises and equipment were sold to a consortium and a new company, Sealord Products Export Limited, was formed.⁴

In 2009, Sealord's processing headquarters is in Nelson, where it has fish, coated products and shellfish processing plants. Nelson is also the base for Sealord's Fleet Managers, Research & Development, Information Systems, Human Resources and Staff Development and other support services. Since then, the company has been jointly owned by New Zealand Māori, through Aotearoa Fisheries Limited, formerly the Waitangi Fisheries Commission, and Japanese seafood company Nissui, and is one of the largest seafood companies in the Southern hemisphere.⁵

2009 

Updated: April 2020

Story by: Noleen Burton

NZ Sea Products Decimal Currency Sealords