Non Technical Summary

Despite long standing interest in the fishing of sea urchins and their roe in Australia, attempts to develop an export industry have met with limited success. Yet, Australian sea urchin roe is a valuable resource with potential to generate significant earnings, particularly from Japan, where sea urchin roe is regarded as a premium seafood product. A field trip to Japan was done to develop a market profile for fresh sea urchin roe, and involved gathering information about supply and demand, and the characteristics of sea urchin roe that affect quality and price. Implications were made about how this knowledge could be used to focus production of sea urchin roe in Australia on key product quality attributes that would assist in developing export markets.