Lukina Lukin builds on her husband Dinko's innovation and drive in Port Lincoln southern bluefin tuna industry
Lukina Lukin and Ken Martin's statue at Port Lincoln in memory of her husband Dinko Lukin.
Images courtesy Port Lincoln Times
Lukina Lukin became one of the brightest and most innovative leaders in Australia’s southern bluefin tuna industry, based at Port Lincoln in South Australia, as the widow of Dinko Lukin, a pioneer and another innovative hero of the industry.
Dinko Lukin arrived in Australia from Croatia in 1956 with a few pounds and, after cutting cane in north Queensland, ended in Port Lincoln where he built a multimillion-dollar fishing business. Hes tarted by building Australia’s first tuna poling boat in Australia, the Orao, in the early 1960s and began fishing in the Great Australian Bight.
In response to the severe quote system on catches imposed in the 1980s, Lukin invented the net system for catching wild young tuna at sea and bringing them back alive to Port Lincoln to be ranched, fed and fattened in net cages closer to shore. This new approach saved the industry in Port Lincoln.
When Dinko Lukin died in 2011, he left his business to his second wife Lukina to run as best she could, armed with the years of training he’d given her. Mr Lukin was 61 when he met his second Thai-born wife, then known as Lakanna, in 1996 when she was 29 and working in a Port Lincoln restaurant. They married in a Thai village in 1997 and she adopted Lukina (“belonging to Lukin”) as her name.
When she inherited the business, Lukina Lukin wasn’t sure she could turn the enterprise around. The farm’s ranching nets were old and fish mortality was high. The 30-year old fish processing plant had leaky refrigeration and expensive power needs, and there was a $32 million debt.
For several years, Lukina was the only woman on the board of the powerful Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Industry Association. But every one of the many innovations she introduced at Dinko Tuna were closely watched and often followed.
Dinko Tuna also had the smallest southern bluefin tuna quota of all the Port Lincoln companies that collectively held 90% of the national allocation. Lukina Lukin dealt with that quota by value adding: first by upgrading all equipment, selling some assets, getting rid of debt and making a profit.
She led the search for new markets and innovative tuna products. She pioneered entry to markets in China and into the luxury Australian sector that relied on imported Indonesian-caught yellowfin tuna for year-round supplies.
Dinko Tuna invested more than $1.2 million in a processing plant to add value to a greater part of its 10,000 fattened fish production. The equipment included several cutting-edge $100,000 snap-freezing cabinets that use liquid nitrogen to freeze tuna portions down to –60°C in 45 minutes. This resulted in flesh that, when thawed, was almost indistinguishable in quality, texture and taste from fresh fish.