Moruya's Aflick abattoir has new name and mission

When Don Afflick founded D&S Afflick south of Moruya 54 years ago, it was to process red meat.

Now, Don's grandson Jeff has added a multimillion-dollar fish plant to the menu and changed its name to Proteins Australia.

Jeff said Eurobodalla Shire companies had installed the equipment for the $7.5 million facility on the NSW South Coast.

"The only other main fish processing plants are in Peru and Chile," Mr Afflick said.

"No-one in Australia is doing what we do."

The Princes Highway business dipped its toes into the fish processing water several years ago, but has since jumped right in, tripling production.

Jeff said the original fish facility produced three tons of product per hour and had extremely high gas costs. The new plant uses 66 per cent less gas and processes nine tons of product per hour.

Using South and Far South Coast fish, it produces feed for fisheries, supplies high-end pet food manufacturers and some fish is sent to markets for human consumption.

Jeff hopes to build a refinery by mid-2021, to produce fish oil products.

"The refinery will allow us to produce oil at a pharmaceutical grade, which is also food grade," he said.

"That oil can then be used in the pharmaceutical department in capsules, to medicines that need fish oil, right through to food products and baby formulas."

A new evaporation plant recycles old and un-used product, sending it back into the plant for processing, making valuable savings.

"It's something we have needed for a very long time," Mr Afflick said.

"The benefits are unbelievable."

The new plant and facilities have boosted profits exponentially.

Jeff said 2015 was one of the abattoir's best financial years for red meat, but fish could triple returns.

"The profitability between our best abattoir years and what we're seeing already, it could be up 300 per cent," he said.

The abattoir has already sold its next five years' worth of product.

"The new fish plant was important," he said.

"As a business, we had to move with times and evolve."

Jeff is excited to see where the future will take the plant.