Aquabella owned-New Forest is installing new machinery, with an eye toward targeting the lucrative pre-packaged market.

Fillets of other species, such as sea bass, outsell whole fish by between three and five times, according to the company's figures.

New Forest Barramundi supplies whole barramundi to larger Waitrose stores, but the retailer is keen to cut the time its customers and in-store fishmongers spend preparing the fish.

“The scales are quite tough,” Jeremy Ryland Langley, Waitrose specialist fish buyer, told IntraFish. “The time it takes to fillet them does create a few problems in terms of serving other customers."

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