Jack Costello and the Union Fish and Ice Company, Chapel Street Tauranga

Site for Costello Seafoods Ltd. Sulphur Point, Tauranga c 1968. Jack Costello holds first marker peg, while fisherman Don Shattock drives it in with an axe.
Description and image courtesy of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 11-152

 In 1930 a retired Union Steamship Company captain, Roslyn King Clark, and his sister set up a fish curing business on the shore of the Waikareao Estuary. The Union Fish and Ice Company made hundred-weight blocks of ice in a concrete tower* and these were let down through a trapdoor to waiting trucks. 

Page 28 of the Bay of Plenty Yearbook 1955, Astra Publicity, courtesy of John Green.

 In 1938 fish retailer W.J. ( Bill ) Costello of Rotorua was the owner of a trawler operating out of Tauranga.  This was a former steam vessel, Marina, converted to a motor vessel three years previously. It was not a success due to high maintenance costs. His next boat, the Katoa, was holed off Town Point at Maketu on VJ Day, 15 August 1945 and was a total loss. 

Aerial view of Chapel St reclamation. The Union Fish and Ice Company is at the top left, its small jetty just visible at the harbour’s edge.
Image from Bay of Plenty Yearbook 1955, Astra Publicity, courtesy of John Green.

 Bill’s son Jack had served his time as a boilermaker in Rotorua but began his fishing career when he and his parents bought the Union Fish and Ice Company and their processing plant on the corner of Marsh and Chapel Streets for £3,500 in 1947. Prior to the 1959 construction of the Chapel Street road bridge, Costello’s trawlers operated from the wharf next to the plant, sailing under the Waikareao rail bridge to access the main harbour and open sea beyond.  

Trawler “Vanguard” discharging catch onto Costello’s Bedford truck at Fisherman’s Wharf, 1950s
Image courtesy of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 11-164

 Within two years they had expanded their fleet to three  —  Vanguard, Golden Gate and Sea Ranger. Jack bought his parents out so as to have full control of the operation. The catches brought in on their three vessels had outstripped local demand so he designed and built a blast freezer and sent the frozen fillets to Australia. By 1955 he had amalgamated with fishing giant Sanfords Ltd on reclaimed land in Cross Road, Sulphur Point with the proviso that he manage it for 10 years. In 1967, once his term was over, he negotiated with the Tauranga Harbour Board for a new site. His modern fish processing plant was erected nearby and named Costello’s Seafoods.

 

70-foot purse seiner “Valkyrie”, complete with pipe band on board, at her commissioning ceremony.  Built for Costello’s Union Fish and Ice Company in 1964.
Image courtesy of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 11-162

By 1971, Sanfords planned to build their own modern plant next door but the depressed fish export market at the time resulted in Costellos’ selling their assets to Sanfords and once again appointing Jack as managing director there until 1975, and then as an advisor for a further three years.

 

Costello’s Seafoods, Sulphur Point 1969.  

Image courtesy of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 11-157

Following this he moved to Auckland where he set up several more businesses, including two coolstores —  later sold to Sanfords. Jack then moved back to Tauranga and got into property development before leaving for the Gold Coast, Australia in 1981. He passed away over there in 1998, well respected and remembered for his efforts to establish a competitive and successful fishing industry in Tauranga area.

 * The tower was finally removed when the Marsh Street flyover was constructed in 2008