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| Hagen Stehr with a Clean Seas kingfish harvested from gulf waters off Eyre Peninsula. |
The deal for 330 outlets of the retail giant to stock South Australian kingfish was announced yesterday by Clean Seas chairman Hagen Stehr.
"Sainsbury's is one of the largest fish retailers in the UK, so this is an incredible global opportunity for us – a real coup," Mr Stehr said.
The first tonne of fresh kingfish was due to be delivered to the supermarkets today – within 50 hours of being harvested during the cool of night by the Port Lincoln-based aquaculture company.
The deal is the first reached with a major supermarket chain and is expected to be worth several million dollars a year, Mr Stehr said.
Clean Seas, which listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in December, 2005, has been selling in Britain and Europe on a smaller scale.
"We had several opportunities with chains such as Carrefour but just couldn't do it before. We just weren't big enough," Mr Stehr said.
"Once you sign, you've got to come up with the goods. You need to have the product.