$300m fish to fry: Sydney Fish Market rewrites rules of seafood trading game - Sydney Morning Herald

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For decades, seafood merchants have woken up before sunrise to converge at the Sydney Fish Market to buy and sell seafood in a daily auction bidding process that hasn't substantially changed in about 33 years.

But a new app has brought this auction process online for the first time, under plans by chief executive Greg Dyer to cement the iconic institution's role as Australia's pre-eminent seafood trading marketplace and tourist destination and double sales to more than $300 million a year.

Sydney Fish Market CEO Greg Dyer is behind the push to take the 70 year old fish market into the future.

Sydney Fish Market CEO Greg Dyer is behind the push to take the 70 year old fish market into the future.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

"It's a fundamental part of what we do," Dyer said of the live bidding. "But the product doesn't any longer have to come from Pyrmont for us to trade it."

The online platform, SFMBlue, will effectively untether the Blackwattle Bay-based market's physical location from the trading process so traders can connect with sellers across the country and lock in prices and orders before showing up to the daily 5.30am auction in Pyrmont. In any given week, anywhere between 35 tonnes and 90 tonnes of seafood is traded through the Sydney Fish Market involving some 150 species per week.

Dyer insists the app will complement the auction bidding and not make it redundant, pointing out that fishmongers have been accustomed to the same processes for generations. The fish market chief expects take-up to be a slow burn. Since SFMBlue went live five weeks ago, only about 2 per cent of seafood is traded through the platform.

"We're very much a traditional industry," Dyer said. "I'm not going to predict the future 20 years out. But I can predict that, for at least the next 10 years, the physical market will be an important part of the trading of seafood. And I believe that that's likely to last beyond that period."

An artist's impression of the new Sydney Fish Market building at the head of Blackwattle Bay, right beside its current location.

An artist's impression of the new Sydney Fish Market building at the head of Blackwattle Bay, right beside its current location.

The online trading platform is a key part of a broader overhaul of Sydney Fish Market's identity spearheaded by Dyer to turn it into a marketplace fit for the future. The company this week unveiled its new minimalist logo with a gently curved line that serves as a nod to the fish market's new building, next door to the current location, that will be under construction until late 2024.

The changes have been a long time coming. "It's late," Dyer says of SFMBlue. "Almost every agricultural market in the world has an online environment. Why would Australian seafood be any different? Who better to do this?"

Before taking over the CEO role three years ago from predecessor Bryan Skepper who retired after four decades with the organisation, Dyer was the chief of Parramatta City Council and chief financial officer at a range of real estate and property companies including developer Mirvac.

Dyer sees a Sydney Fish Market of the future through the lens of his experience in these sectors: while the new purpose-built "architecturally stunning" facility is under construction, Dyer will hire new property and precinct management, tourism specialists, event managers, as well as bolster business development and customer service. "We were a little bit passive," he said.

Dyer will have to bring on new buyers and suppliers and unlock segments of the seafood industry such as aquaculture farmers (as opposed to wild-caught seafood) if he is to meet self-imposed aspirations to double the $160 million in sales to over $300 million a year.

Not only that, but he intends to turn the fish market into Sydney's third-best harbourside attraction, behind the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, and keep it high on tourists' bucket lists.

"We never want to deny where we came from because it's so important – the history, the legacy, the foundations ... that all comes from our 70-year history. But there's a real opportunity to build on that," he said. "We will be so much more, and we can be so much more."

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