Our Farm
We operate a fully integrated aquaculture model
We farm in rhythm with the sea. These waters shape the quality of our abalone, while skilled, patient work ensures it is cultivated with care and respect.
Our Operations
From hatchery to harvest
From hatchery and grow-out farms to a state-of-the-art processing facility, our farms and processes are designed to protect the health and quality of every abalone we raise.
We uphold rigorous standards in water quality, animal care, biosecurity and food safety to ensure a reliable, year-round supply.
Full traceability at every stage allows buyers to trust the origin, health and handling of each abalone.
From hatchery to export
Hatchery
Grow-out
Land-based tanks
Harvest
Processing
Canning · drying · live
Export
Where It Begins
The hatchery
Our broodstock is selectively bred in our own hatchery — nothing is collected from the wild. Fertilised eggs are reared through larval, nursery and spat stages, with excess production allowing only the strongest animals to be selected.
This careful early-stage selection ensures the quality Abagold is known for.
The Grow-Out Farms
Four farms, one coastline
Together, the farms span 13 hectares and include 4,000 land-based tanks supplied with over 10,000 tons of seawater per hour. Animals progress through these farms as they grow, receiving expert care at each stage.
Full Circle
State-of-the-art processing
The journey ends at our state-of-the-art processing facility on the Hermanus coast, where the same rigorous standards of food safety carry each abalone from our farm to your table.
The facility is certified to FSSC 22000 — the globally recognised food safety standard built on HACCP principles — ensuring every Abagold product reaches you safe and fresh.
On our canning line, in operation since 2006, abalone is retort-cooked in the classic brine style and graded to export standard. Every batch is coded, so each can traces back to its origin on the farm.
Full traceability follows every animal through processing, so the origin, health and handling of each abalone are never in doubt.
Beyond the Water
The teams behind the farm
An operation of this scale runs on far more than seawater — it depends on the people and services that keep every unit moving.
Operations
Dedicated operations teams run the farm across hatchery, grow-out, feeding, water quality and processing, working shifts around the clock to keep every tank and every line moving.
Technical
Abagold's technical team ensures the uninterrupted delivery of bulk services across all production units, the processing facility and the head office.
Support functions
Our support teams — finance, training and human resources — support a workforce of more than 350 people. Adult Based Education and Training (ABET) programmes, NOSA-accredited safety training and an on-site clinic ensure ongoing skills development, safety and wellbeing.
Marketing and sales
Abagold focuses on building and managing its premium brand, positioning its products at the top end of both international and domestic seafood markets.
Our Wider Family
From feed mill to far shores
The expertise developed in Hermanus extends beyond our own tanks. It shapes the feed we formulate and produce for our abalone — and supports the cultivation of a species found only in Oman.
Specialised Aquatic Feeds
What an abalone eats shapes everything that follows, so we made feed our own business. Abagold began developing feed in-house in 2010, was raising its animals entirely on its own formulations by 2012, and in 2014 the feed department became a company in its own right.
From a state-of-the-art plant in Hermanus, in operation since 2015, Specialised Aquatic Feeds formulates the diets our abalone are raised on — and today also produces feeds for trout, tilapia, catfish and koi, alongside contract-manufactured pet foods for local and export markets.
Oman Aquaculture
Established in 2012 as a 50:50 joint venture between Muscat Overseas Group and Abagold, Oman Aquaculture Company operates a land-based abalone farm at Mirbat, in Oman's Dhofar governorate.
There the venture breeds and cultivates Haliotis mariae — the Omani Golden Abalone, known locally as As'sufailah and found nowhere else on earth — easing pressure on wild stocks while building a new industry on Oman's southern coast. In 2024 came a milestone many years in the making: the first commercial harvest.
Taste the result of patient farming
Premium South African abalone — raised with care and fully traceable from hatchery to harvest.
Shop the Collection