Tim Rudge had a passion for abalone and the Great Southern Ocean and in early 1999 convinced a group of similarly young investors that he had the perfect site for an abalone farm in far south west Victoria.
And so, in 1999, Yumbah’s Narrawong site was born in a windswept dune.
In Perth, some equally enthusiastic investors led by Shane Mclinden worked with Fremantle TAFE to discover how to spawn and raise abalone, and by 2003 bought into an existing farm at Point Boston near Port Lincoln, South Australia. Here, under the guidance of Tom Hyde, much of the standard technology underpinning today’s industry was invented.
In 2006, under the leadership of Jonathan Lille and Craig Kelly, seven independent farms joined together to co-operatively market their abalone under the AUSAB Australian abalone brand. In 2013 the AUSAB company and brand was purchased by Yumbah.
Safety through scale and geography led the dreamers from the West and East to merge in 2008. Expansion in that same year saw the Kangaroo Island farm, then co-managed by David O’Connell, acquired followed by the purchase of Yumbah Bicheno, Tasmania in 2010. Opportunity arose again in 2012 leading to the acquisition of second abalone farm located at Point Boston and in 2016 with the purchase of the land between the two farms to form what is now Yumbah Point Lincoln.
In 2017 the Yumbah story of integrated aquaculture continues with the purchase of Yumbah Aquafeed which manufactures food for the farms and the opening of a state of the art processing facility, Yumbah Processing, both located in Adelaide.