bellarine smoked fish company

Fish preservation through smoking, drying or pickling has been around for centuries. The Basques have their salt cod, you’ll find pickled herring in Northern Europe, and locally the Indigenous population are said to have smoked eels and fish in hollowed-out native trees. It’s a culinary pursuit steeped in history, and right here in the Geelong region there are two people making a mark with their very own hot smoked fish.

Ask Jarron Mason why people should eat his smoked fish and he’ll tell you that many of their competitors’ products are full of additives, nitrates and are often artificially coloured and flavoured. The Bellarine Smoked Fish Company uses none of these, instead employing only the most traditional of methods: A combination of fish, salt and woodsmoke. Jarron, a Kiwi, explains that smoking fish in New Zealand is practically a national past-time, and he was surprised to find a lack of quality product here in Australia. Jarron got to work; he commissioned his father and an old engineering friend to build him a commercial grade smoker, and from there a unique enterprise was born.