Adelaide shoppers are paying a stinging premium for South Australia's most prized table fish, and the state's peak seafood body says the price hikes will not ease quickly. According to a 22 May ABC News report by Rachael Merritt, King George Whiting is currently selling for $99.99 a kilo online, calamari and garfish prices have edged up, and the closure that triggered the squeeze has just been pushed out by almost two more years.
Gulf St Vincent has been shut to commercial marine scalefish fishing since November 2025, after a toxic algal bloom devastated stocks of whiting, southern calamari, garfish and other key species. The closure was scheduled to reopen this July. Instead, it has now been extended until May 2027 — a recognition that the recovery will be measured in seasons, not weeks.
Seafood Industry SA executive officer Kyri Toumazos said the gulf is too important to reopen prematurely, but conceded the longer shutdown will keep pressure on prices.
"That is always a risk when you have less supply," Toumazos said.
He estimates Gulf St Vincent accounts for around half the state's total marine scalefish production, particularly garfish, whiting and calamari. With those stocks off the table, retailers have leaned heavily on other zones.
"There's definitely been a shorter supply of seafood over the last few months — some species, definitely we've seen a slight [price] increase, such as calamari and whiting are the two that are predominantly the drivers here in South Australia," Toumazos said. "Garfish, we've seen a little bit of a [price] increase, but garfish usually is a product that gets caught at different times of the year so we're hoping that over the next few months we will see greater catches."
Toumazos warned that even the early signs of recovery in species such as blue swimmer crab will not translate into a quick return to normal supply. He estimates it could take five to ten years for the industry to climb back to pre-bloom capacity, and only if there is no fresh outbreak.
"That is without another re-occurrence of a bloom or the traces of the bloom continuing as we're seeing in Spencer Gulf for long periods of time," he said.
At the Adelaide Central Market, Angelakis Brothers director Alex Knoll said the bloom has reshaped what customers can expect from their fish counter heading into winter.
"We would normally start to see an abundance of King George Whiting come through the markets, that's not happening at the moment but we are getting some good numbers of garfish," Knoll said. "It will be a little bit harder for the South Australian squid but there is always an alternative available which I think is really important."
Knoll said while a near-$100 kilo for premium whiting around Christmas is not unheard of, the duration of the elevated price is unusual.
"I guess it's been sustained for a lot longer because we haven't had the abundance of fish coming out of the water so we can then reduce the price," he said.
Fair Seafood owner Amanda Prance said the impact on her shop has been felt in basic stock levels.
"We haven't had King George Whiting in for probably about four weeks," Prance said. "If you want to do a curry, if you want to put something on the barbecue, if you want to have a pan fry, we've always got a fish available for that. Particularly with cost of living, that's obviously a consideration — we always try and make sure we've got fish in those different price points."
The state government's latest water testing recorded low or zero levels of karenia across most of the SA coastline, with elevated readings at six Eyre Peninsula sites, one Yorke Peninsula site and parts of Spencer Gulf. The figures suggest the bloom has not fully cleared even where commercial closures remain, leaving Seafood Industry SA to actively monitor unaffected zones as those grounds carry more of the state's supply.