The Kai Ika Project relies on volunteers to help our small team recover and share enough kaimoana to feed our growing community.

We have a range of opportunities available for individuals or groups of any size.

If you would like to be involved with an initiative dedicated to having a positive impact on our environment and community please fill out your details below and we’ll be in touch.

Our volunteers help with kaimoana collections, community distributions, fish handling and processing, assisting with POS transactions, community engagement, gardening at the Papatūānuku Kōkiri Marae, assisting at special events and in a number of behind the scene roles.

https://kaiika.co.nz/volunteer-with-kai-ika/

The world is shifting, the immediate future is unclear and uncertain. However one thing remains clear – people always need access to good quality food, water and shelter. We need your help to provide these human rights to vulnerable communities.

Requests for kaimoana are once again on the rise. We’re up for the challenge, but we need your help.

A little koha will go a long way.

If you’d like to donate, head over to our donation page and follow the instructions. 

https://kaiika.co.nz/donate/

It all started thanks to a simple question from the Outboard Boating Club of Auckland (OBC).

OBC approached LegaSea and said “We think we could be doing better, we don’t know what that is but we think that we could be doing better with these fish parts. Can you help us?”

The club has a fish filleting station for their members to use. After a long day out on the water, the members would return to the marina, wash their boats, fillet their fish and be on their way. Members would chuck their fish heads and frames into a one tonne skip bin. They even paid for this to be removed and sent to landfill. 

In the same week, LegaSea founder, Scott Macindoe read a newspaper article about The Papatuanuku Kokiri marae in South Auckland which grows 80,000 kumara every year to share with the community.

Scott called the marae and asked. “How would you like 80,000 fish heads to go with your 80,000 kumura?” 

And so, in 2016 The Kai Ika Project was born, with volunteers picking up 17kg of fish heads and frames from the Outboard Boating Club.

Our dedicated team are responsible for fish filleting, kai moana collections, additional processing (removing gills, guts, breaking down heads, wings and frames) and community distribution.  

Our lead filleter, Dave Ahoia, has over 30 years experience in fish processing. He works at ‘ninja’ speed efficiently and will recover as much of the fillet as possible. On a busy Friday in the middle of summer our team at the Z Pier trailer will fillet hundreds of fish. 

The spare fish parts from Westhaven, Moana New Zealand, Sanford,Scott Seafood, and Kiwi Fish, are picked up by the crew from Papatūānuku Kōkiri Marae, and taken back to south Auckland for distribution. 

A text message is sent to the community advising fish is now available. Usually, within minutes, there is a lineup of cars and families waiting patiently (2m apart during COVID level 4 of course) for a chance to receive this treasured kai moana. 

After the fulfilling task of feeding the community, everyone is happy and the team moves onto the next set of tasks at the marae. 

The Kai Ika Project is a nonprofit initiative that is funded through partners/sponsors, grant providers and public donations. 

Our filleting service was established to assist in funding the project with 100% of income, injected back into the kaupapa. 

We have ambitions to create additional revenue streams to allow us to continue scaling up our operations to feed more families.

We provide filleting services to fishing competitions. A new trailer is due for completion in late 2021, which will be fully equipped to use at events. 

Our goal is to minimise our impact on the marine environment by reducing waste, and educating fishers to make the most of every fish taken. 

We are currently developing a 100% organic fertiliser using inedible fish parts (offal) that were previously buried in the Marae’s community garden, adding to our maximum utilisation kaupapa.