New Zealand company NewFish is combining a love of kaimoana with a passion for sustainability to create innovative seafood that doesn’t harm the planet. Co-founder Hamish Howard joined Business is Boring for a chat.

Overfishing of our oceans has been happening for decades now, and the effects are being felt around the world as fish populations dwindle and ecosystems are ruined. Popular documentaries like Seaspiracy have put the issue on the world stage, but for many cultures, simply cutting out kaimoana is not an option. So what’s the solution?

Hamish Howard realised there must be a way to create seafood products that didn’t harm the planet without compromising on taste. His brand NewFish has entered the kaimoana market with their pāua saucisson, a charcuterie sausage that uses the very best of New Zealand pāua, pork and algae.

Howard has big aspirations to reimagine New Zealand’s seafood industry and change food production systems for the better. Last week, he joined Simon Pound on Business is Boring to talk about his journey to business owner, and big plans for the industry.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Simon Pound: With a background in the fishing industry and a degree in marine biology, what led you back to study and to wanting to do what you’re doing with NewFish?

Hamish Howard: Ultimately, my passion really is about understanding how New Zealand’s fisheries are managed and how I could play a role in improving what is a great industry, but one that can certainly achieve a lot more. NewFish is a future food startup with a focus on reimagining New Zealand’s seafood and really changing our food production systems for the better. 

What does it mean to “reimagine seafood”?

For us, reimagining seafood is about exploring the full potential of New Zealand’s kaimoana, whether that be through the development and commercialisation of world’s first products that realise the true value of what we already harvest, or perhaps more importantly, by exploring new seafood products from our moana.

How does NewFish plan to do this?

We hope to change our food production systems for the better by creating new products that add value to existing waste streams or low value export commodities by embracing a philosophy of full utilisation. We also hope to change our food production systems for the better by helping to build a globally relevant regenerative seaweed and microalgae industry that will contribute to a truly sustainable blue economy here in New Zealand.

There’s so much more water than there is land in our territory, so things like microalgae farming seem to make a lot of sense for a country with New Zealand’s resources.

Absolutely. We’ve got a huge marine estate and the lack of aquaculture happening in New Zealand outside of salmon farming and green lipped mussel and oyster farming is fairly minimal. So the potential there is huge. We know we’ve got roughly 1,000 species of native New Zealand seaweeds, and then micro algae is undoubtedly an even larger number, but it’s a bit of an unknown just because there’s been so little attention paid to it.

What other products do you have in development and where do things like microalgae and macroalgae come into it?

In terms of macroalgae, our plan is really to support the growth of an industry here in New Zealand. And that means being a company who produces products using seaweed. On the microalgae side of things, we’re currently partnering with the Cawthron Institute, New Zealand’s largest marine science organisation, which is based in Nelson, and as part of that project we’re also partnering with a really forward-thinking engineering firm hoping to design some solutions for growing microalgae.

When you say you’re using “waste streams” – your first product is like quite a fancy pāua sausage, so it’s adding a lot of value. 

The NewFish pāua saucisson is a naturally fermented French-style salami made from the highest quality New Zealand ingredients we can get our hands on. So wild blackfoot pāua is really the hero ingredient. However, we also use freefarmed Kurobuta pork, which is the Wagyu beef of pork, and other ingredients such as native Pacific kelp, which is harvested down in Akaroa. It’s a really interesting recipe and product that really celebrates some of New Zealand’s best products and ingredients.

How is pāua currently processed?

Blackfoot pāua is endemic to New Zealand, meaning that it’s found nowhere else in the world. Furthermore, our pāua stocks are generally well managed with all pāua harvested by freedivers from amazing locations throughout New Zealand. However, the vast majority of New Zealand’s pāua harvest is currently bleached, using fairly nasty chemicals and sulfites, and canned for export. The purpose of them carrying out this process is essentially to make it look like other species of abalone.

At NewFish we feel there’s a real opportunity rather than bleaching and canning our pāua, to really take pride in it and market it as the unique ingredient that it is.

Just five years after launching, online investment platform Sharesies has half a million New Zealand users with $2b invested. Simon Pound spoke with co-founder Brooke Roberts for returning podcast series Business is Boring.

For a long time investing felt inaccessible to a lot of New Zealanders – the sharemarket was seen as an exclusive space where you needed a big stack of cash just to get started. But when Sharesies launched its digital investment tool in 2016, it allowed people to start investing at whatever budget they had available. Suddenly, people had the option to dip their toes into investing with just dollars at a time.

Now the company is valued at half a billion dollars, and nearly 10% of the country uses it. And five years in, Sharesies is still just getting started. Co-founder and co-CEO Brooke Roberts has big plans for expanding their reach and taking on the much larger Australian market. She spoke to Business is Boring last week about the inspiration behind the business, what it’s taken to get Sharesies to where it is now and why financial independence is such a powerful opportunity.

After an extended summer break, the award-winning podcast series Business is Boring is back refreshed, rejuvenated and with a brand new partner in Spark Lab. Join Simon Pound every Tuesday as he talks to everyone from accidental entrepreneurs to industry leaders about their business journeys and what propelled them to where they are today.

Listen and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Simon Pound: In 2017, you had 2,000 users. How did you grow the business to half a million in five years? What were the big steps that you took?

Brooke Roberts: When we started there was this real perception that you couldn’t invest if you didn’t have heaps of money, you had to know all the jargon to be an investor and you pretty much had to be wealthy to be an investor. I think that’s changed or has really started to change over the last five years.

When I Googled “investor” in 2017, the images I got were a lot of dudes, typically older and all looking the same, but that has changed in reality. We’ve got people from zero to 97-years-old and from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. I want to see that change when I image search investors in the future. 

There are still a lot of opportunities that people are locked out of. We really want to give someone with $5 the same money opportunity as someone with $5m, and there’s still a lot more doors that we need to break down. There’s definitely a changing picture, but there’s so much more to do for underrepresented communities too. That’s something that we always focus on – making sure it’s a platform for everyone, no matter how much experience you have or your background. I’m looking forward to the next five years, really seeing a big change there and hopefully we’re playing a part.

When did you know it was working?

When we started to think, “oh yeah, there’s something working here” was when we started to see that organic growth. The people that just found us or were word-of-mouth referrals really started to take off – and that’s been a big chunk of our growth to this day.

I think that shows you’ve created something lovable that people are going to go and tell their friends or their community about. There’s something there if people are really proud of using Sharesies and are really proud about their portfolio and learning about investing and sharing that. I think that’s when we started to see that groundswell start to take off.

How did you break down the barriers and change the perception around share investing?

We really, really focused on making a product that was really, really lovable. We weren’t trying to just take what was in the industry and make that more available. It was about reshaping finances and money and investing.

We really listened to people. We wanted to create something that was as easy for them as online shopping and really clear and they knew what they were getting into and that they could invest however much they want to, when they wanted. They don’t have to worry about what price a share is. They can just go, “Hey, I want to invest $100 or $200 into these things.” And be able to do that, more or less.

We made sure we were building a business that was a force for good – we’re a B Corp – and that our business is more than the product you see.

To have nearly 10% of the country’s population on a platform is absolutely bananas considering it was such a new idea for New Zealand only five years ago. How does that feel as a relatively new business?

It definitely feels like we’re just starting, but there are some funny moments. When I meet someone and they’re like, “where do you work? What do you do?” I’m like, “Sharesies.” Then some of them go, “Oh, Sharesies. Oh, I love Sharesies. I’m on the app all the time. Oh, this is how I got into investing and before that I had no idea…”

It’s just really cool hearing these stories that come out. There’s still a lot of people that don’t know who Sharesies are. It’s not just me. It’s a team. The team should be really proud of everything they’ve done to date, but as they know, there’s just so much more to do in terms of creating financial empowerment for all. It does just feel like it’s still day one.

Do you have favourite stories of people, the normal people who didn’t have access to shares before, who’ve got involved?

One story that really warms my heart I remember hearing about from a woman who was in quite a toxic relationship. She was able to put some money away into her Sharesies and to get out of that relationship and get into a better position for her and her son and also be able to start building a portfolio and feeling that financial independence.

There’s just so many experiences that people can get from that financial empowerment and just learning about compounding returns and how investing works and just feeling like there’s hope and there’s a path forward for their future.

I saw that you’ve mentioned that your grandmother was a really important person in your life. Can you tell me a little bit about that and how her inspiration is part of the mix?

She lives in Manurewa, has lived there my whole life. She spends her whole day knitting for premature babies and gives it to the local hospital. Back when she could drive, she would go and do Meals on Wheels and I’d go around with her at times.

Then also she’d spend a lot of her weekends volunteering in the local op shops. She’s just constantly giving. You’d say you’re cold and she’d give you her jacket, even though she would freeze.

I think I learned a lot about your place in the community from her, and making sure that you’re really connected to what’s going on and supporting and creating change where needed.