While taking a whiff of what is cooking in any old seafood factory might not be the most appealing thought, in Peter Jecks' Abacus Fisheries warehouse, the smell is actually rather enticing.

That is because, aside from the blue swimmer crabs, snapper, and scallops being packed and loaded into trucks, Mr Jecks is also trialling working with the produce from local fruit and vegetable growers.

The Abacus Fisheries warehouse was designed to have the capacity to not just sort and pack seafood but also to value-add seafood produce before it was sent to market.

For example, instead of only sending whole blue swimmer crabs to market, Mr Jecks is also able to send packages of crab meat alone which maximises profits, and reduces the amount of waste produce.

Mr Jecks has opened up his facility to local growers and industry bodies including the Gascoyne Food Council, the Gascoyne Development Commission, and Curtin University to help reduce some of the estimated 3,000 tonnes of wasted fruit and vegetables from the region.

"We are sensational as a region with the produce we have here, and so it's about looking at how we can maximise the products," he said.

Over three days, a team of producers and chefs prepared a number of dishes including ratatouille and salsa, and trialled recipes with vegetables from the region such as pumpkin, asparagus, capsicum, and tomato.

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One of the goals for the team is to supply aged-care facilities with pre-cooked meals or par-cooked vegetables to help boost nutrition, and cut time and costs of food preparation in the facilities, as well as providing growers with another outlet to send their 'seconds' produce, which do not reach supermarket specifications.

"There's nothing wrong with them; it's just skin damage," Mr Jecks said.

"We can take the vegetable and we can then convert it into a consumable, ready-to-use product for some of the [health] institutions, which would reduce their processing time dramatically and it would help the region because it would be something where we have a saleable product so we could generate more income and more employment in the region."

The group would also like to produce a line of 'retail-ready' products for supermarket shelves, and had been experimenting with a number of recipes for crab meat croquettes and fish cakes.

However, for now, the focus is on juicing.

Squeezing out the waste

Hiring a screw press, which was able to process about 400 kilograms of honeydew melons per hour, Mr Jecks said it recovered about 70 per cent of the fruit that would have otherwise been wasted.

"That's really exciting. And the honeydew melons that we use are left out in the field, they're the ones that had skin damage or whatever else, absolutely nothing wrong with them, and because they're vine-ripened … that is an amazing base of for a juice."

In conjunction with the Advance Packing and Marketing Services and the Fresh Produce Alliance, the group is able to take advantage of the high pressure processing (HPP) facility in Manjimup to preserve and export the fruit juices.

Mr Jecks said the Advance Packing and Marketing Services and the Fresh Produce Alliance were creating juices to export to Asian countries including Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong.

Peter Jecks has been trialling a range of fish cakes and crab croquettes in order to minimise waste. ( ABC Rural: Michelle Stanley )

"There's a very good opportunity for the Gascoyne to be a part of that, because we could supply to them on a consistent basis," he said.

"It isn't a golden handshake as such, but it's certainly a way to remove the thousands of tonnes that we're currently dumping, and start to look at how we convert some of those, which will generate income, and will generate more employment.

"It's not going to generate a massive amount of money, but it will give the growers a return on product that they're currently dumping."

Mr Jecks said the group also had a commitment from the Advance Packing and Marketing Services and the Fresh Produce Alliance to supply mango juice.

"So the region, instead of becoming a juice manufacturer, will actually become the ingredient supplier — and that way we can move serious numbers and we then give them some consistency."

During the trial phase, Mr Jecks said he was happy to provide his seafood facility to assist in the juicing.

However, if the trial "takes off", Mr Jecks said the group would look at creating an independent facility.

"Every journey begins with a step — well, we've taken the first step."