Humpty Doo Barramundi

Humpty Doo Barramundi supplies more than 6,000 tonnes of barramundi a year to restaurants, pubs and hotels across Australia, as well as iconic businesses like Qantas and major retailers such as Woolworths and Costco, and overseas markets – including being featured in the Australian Pavilion at World Expo Osaka.

From humble beginnings as a fledgling farm, selling fish at the back doors of Darwin restaurants, Humpty Doo Barramundi has become a global innovator in sustainable fish farming, with international connections to other innovators in aquaculture.

The company has embraced the latest developments in aquaculture to develop an award-winning saltwater wetlands system that enables sustainable, precision barramundi farming.

Led by a family team, Humpty Doo Barramundi credits its success in a sector – where many have failed – to being willing to experiment, innovate, and continually invest in building the capability of educate their people.

Much of Humpty Doo Barramundi’s value is based on a perishable asset, i.e., ‘work in progress’ fish stock. It was a challenge to secure the capital needed for growth.

Infrastructure for fish farming is expensive and investment was even more difficult to secure due to the remote location of the farm. To enable the company to deliver its plan for growth, it was essential to secure funding for all the supporting infrastructure.

“The Australian Centre for Business Growth program really provides the tools and knowledge needed to achieve your growth ambitions.”  Dan Richards, CEO

Dan Richards and his team of four came to the Growth Program to hone their business skills and learn the concepts of business growth together.

They made strategic decisions to build a strong position in the market, bring in more experienced people, implement higher level software and systems, establish a sales team, and diversify into retail and food service. Company innovations were driven by the leaders’ passion for and curiosity about how to scale an ethical and sustainable fish farm.

“Our team really benefited from learning the structures and systems required to support growth. The Centre’s team of Growth Experts brought a huge amount of experience, critiqued our plans and really challenged us in an effort to make our plans for the future even better.” Dan Richards, CEO

Humpty Doo Barramundi team determined they needed a $58 million expansion and secured this through matched funding from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) and ANZ Bank to fund the expansion of farming activities, plus all of the infrastructure required to support an expanded and modern aquaculture business.

The company is expanding training and employment opportunities to over 150 people, with the goal of significantly increasing production over five years. It has since become one of the largest farms of its kind in the world.

Humpty Doo Barramundi was named the ‘Community Champion Supplier of the Year’ at the 2022 Woolworths Group Supplier of the Year Awards.

“Since the business growth program we’ve undertaken a major expansion and that’s going to enable us to more than double the size of the business over the next few years.” Dan Richards, CEO