A pest seaweed blanketing the ocean floor in Akaroa harbour is being turned into a business opportunity by the Ōnuku Rūnanga.
It started harvesting the undaria this week, and had brought two business partners on board to help turn it into a high value food ready for export.
The enterprise has created eight new jobs for the small coastal community, with teenagers from the marae taught how to dive and harvest the seaweed.
Ōnuku Rūnanga chairperson Riki Tainui said "It's exciting for them to be able to live here and still get some work here, so that's one of the best things about this particular project".
Johnny Chambers, 14, said "it's a job and helping out the environment, it's great".
There's so much undaria in the harbour it expects to be able to harvest up to 300,000 tonnes a year, with each harvest taken back to the Ōnuku Marae to be dried.
Premium Seas has set up a processing plant in what was once a paddock for alpacas.
Premium Seas chief executive Lucas Evans said "they're (the alpacas) part of the whānau and they're welcome to come and help us with the work but they have to stay on that side of the fence".
It's all come together in just a year, Evans said.
"This is a passion project and I'm passionate about building the sector in New Zealand."
It's their hope to start exporting into Australia and Asia by February next year.
Tainui said "I've learnt that if you find the right people to do things with, everything is possible".
At the processing plant, they dry the seaweed at a low heat to lock in all of its nutrients. It's then packed and passed on to Ceres Organics to turn it into flake or powder form to add to foods and other prodcuts.
Ceres Organics marketing manager Donald Shepherd said "allowing us to make a product that helps the whānau and the harbour, that's superb to us".
Eventually, the trio hope to harvest beyond the harbour, heading up the southern coast.
"Fortunately for us Ngai Tahu has the only control permit in the country," Taunui said.
But beyond the business opportunities, the first priority is a 200 year plan to transform Ōnuku Marae's big blue backyard, building a beautiful, bountiful future for its rangatahi in the process.
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