Abalone producer Rare Foods Australia winds down as Chinese supply pressures prices

Rare Foods Australia is winding down its ocean-ranched abalone operation in Augusta after recording mounting losses and a sharp fall in export prices. The company’s former managing director Brad Adams and an Indigenous corporation involved in a proposed Esperance project said the downturn highlights the need for regional industries to adapt.

Rare Foods Australia is winding down its ocean-ranched abalone operation on Western Australia’s southern coast after accumulating losses of more than $25 million and facing a steep decline in export prices, according to financial documents reported by ABC News.

The company, once the biggest employer in the seaside town of Augusta, employed local workers to dive for abalone around artificial reefs in Flinders Bay and process the molluscs at a nearby facility. Its business expanded during an export boom in 2019, when demand from Chinese consumers helped drive growth.

ABC News reported that the company’s difficulties have intensified as China’s farmed abalone industry expanded. China’s production has reached about 200,000 tonnes a year, contributing to an oversupplied market that was once a major destination for Australian abalone.

Rare Foods Australia’s 2024–25 financial report recorded an annual loss of $4,833,469 and showed its net assets falling from $9.6 million to $4.7 million. A wind-down strategy adopted in 2025 included restructuring the workforce, reducing operating costs and stopping the seeding of juvenile abalone into the Augusta reefs. The company also delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange to reduce listing expenses.

Former managing director Brad Adams, who founded the business in 2011 under its former name, Ocean Grown Abalone, told ABC News that export prices for greenlip abalone had effectively halved. He said prices that had averaged about $55 to $60 a kilogram had fallen to around $30 to $35, leaving businesses needing to respond quickly or seek other opportunities.

The downturn has affected the wider Australian aquaculture sector. ABC News reported that two Tasmanian farms closed last year, while Yumbah Aquaculture shut its Kangaroo Island farm after a damaging algal bloom along South Australia’s coast. Plans for an abalone ranch and aquaculture precinct near Esperance, developed with the Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation, are also now uncertain because of the capital required and weaker market conditions.

ETNTAC chief executive Peter Bednall said investigating the project’s future remained worthwhile, but argued that small regional towns needed broader opportunities so young people could stay and build expertise locally.