Living every day under a modus operandi to ‘get fishers back out fishing, fast’, while reducing as much waste as possible, makes Josh Donker a happy man.
Josh is the general manager of Motueka Nets, a fishing-net making and mending business started by his grandfather in 1988.
He took over the role from his father with the blessing of his two brothers who, like Josh, had grown up with the business – built at Port Motueka and later relocated to Port Nelson. Josh clocked-on at Motueka Nets at age 16, learning the ropes and business skills before leaving to train and work in IT.
Although he was doing well in his IT career, Josh didn’t hesitate to climb back aboard when his retiring father offered him the helm at Motueka Nets, seeing room to improve on the successful business model.
Improvements aside, the model is still very much to get nets – repaired, modified and more – back to fishers as quickly as possible. This is done without compromising quality in the craft of rigging, knot tying, mending and mesh construction.
To this requirement, Josh has prioritised re-using and recycling as much of an expired trawl net as possible. His success is evident in the near-empty rubbish skip bins, compared to stacked pallets of materials ready for re-use.
There isn’t much of a trawl net that Josh hasn’t figured out how to keep out of landfill.
In collaboration with Sealord, Motueka Nets now dismantles and recycles entire trawl nets. Metal hardware and chains are recycled in Nelson, polyethylene rope is given away to gardeners and farmers, and nylon netting is shipped in 26-tonne loads to Spain, where it is made into mussel farm ropes and other products. Fify-two tonnes of trawl net was saved from landfill in one year this way.
Only the nets’ polyethylene mesh was left over, but by early 2024 Josh had found a s olution. Or rather, the solution came to him.
Motueka Nets’ sustainability efforts had caught the eye of Rui Peng, CEO of Auckland-based technology startup Critical. Rui especially liked the look of the bright blue and green polyethylene mesh, which Critical. now upcycles into a s uccessful range of Kingi chopping boards and office furnishing such as benchtops in those same bright colours.
The journey of the polyethylene mesh, nylon rope and other supplies from their manufacture in Holland to New Zealand is an interesting story as well. Motueka Nets is an MPI-certified transition zone, which means shipping containers from Holland can be opened onsite in its vast yard, following biosecurity procedures.
Shipping has not been straightforward in 2024, with container ships taking the longer route around Africa rather than through the Suez Canal, due to terrorist attacks on ships in the Red Sea. For Motueka Nets, this means containers can be delayed by as much as a month, with a f low-on effect to production schedules – and their core mission to get gear back to fishers as soon as possible.
This year, Josh took his first business trip to meet suppliers in Holland. Shipping delays were on the agenda and Josh also enjoyed seeing little of the country his grandfather grew up in. It was a n ew experience for him, as the third generation to lead the family business into its fourth decade.
This story first ran in the September 2024 issue of Seafood Magazine.
