SUNZ (Sea Urchin New Zealand) Seafood was started it in 1994 by Herb, in those days you couldn’t buy a Kina anywhere… no one was diving for them and nowhere was selling them, so Herb saw an opportunity and took it.
Herb spent many years of hard work, often making nothing trying to make it worth while and has turned SUNZ into a growing family seafood business.
SUNZ has grown rapidly over the years and due to expansion, SUNZ have just brought a factory next door to OPC in Whitianga, and employ roughly 25 factory staff alongside a team of divers full time to harvest Kina.
Todd (Herb’s son) is in charge of the day to day running of the business.
Our Kina is harvested from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South.
As part of the family business, Dwane (son of Herb) dives for Kina out of Bluff and sends the Kina up to Whitianga to get processed here along with a couple of other dive teams to keep the work coming in for the processors.
Along with the Kina we also dive/process Paua which 95% of all is sold domestically in NZ.
Its a great family business that was built and operates in Whitianga. The team at SUNZ support the local community in a number of ways, and work along a number of businesses and even iconic events such as the Whitianga Oceans Festival.