Improved sales of higher priced fresh fish have helped to lift the first half profit of the country's biggest listed fishing company Sanford.
King Salmon Photo: Supplied
The company has reported a 25 percent rise in its net profit to $19 million for the six months ended March, with revenue up 5 percent.
Sanford said the rise came from better prices for high value species including salmon, toothfish and scampi and increased domestic sales, which offset price pressures on its bulk products.
"We have had a challenging first half in some ways - adverse weather impacted operations on numerous occasions and pricing for commodity items such as jack and blue mackerel was lower than we would like," chief executive Volker Kuntsch said.
He said it was expected that the second half would be better as the flow of supply improves, and it starts to get the benefits of a newly-acquired factory processing ship.