A former dairy farmer is winning awards – and hearts – with his new seafood tours.
Story + Photos Sue Wallace
It’s a brilliant sunny day as Lance Wiffen, often known as Victoria’s ‘mussel king’, steers his pride and joy, a beautiful restored 40-year-old Huon pine boat with 12 guests, from Portarlington wharf to open waters to showcase his Port Phillip Bay mussels. The former dairy farmer, who says he was never really keen on being on the water, is the first to admit swapping dairying for mussel farming in the 1980s was a big change.
The tides of fortune turned twice for the Wiffen family, fifth-generation farmers at Portarlington. The first time was when the bottom fell out of dairying. “We then went into scallop farming and Dad bought a wooden boat and set me up as the deckhand with a skipper,” Lance says. “He always said, ‘Once a fisherman, always a fisherman,’ and when the scallop industry went bust, due to the banning of scallop fishing in Port Phillip Bay, I went into mussel farming.”
Lance started the family business with just 3ha of mussels, but went on to establish Victoria’s biggest mussel operation, Sea Bounty, with 200ha of mussels, selling 1.3 million kilograms annually in Australia and Asia. Portarlington is now known as the mussel capital of Victoria, with 60% of Australia’s mussels harvested in Port Phillip Bay.
This story excerpt is from Issue #158
Outback Magazine: December/January 2025
