NZ King Salmon responds to fund application

The country's biggest salmon-farming company is asking for more than $100,000 of taxpayer money to help figure out how to deal with thousands of tonnes of dead fish and fish faeces. RNZ has received a document in which New Zealand King Salmon Company said 1000 tonnes of "mortalities" go to the Bluegums landfill each year. The document says it's not an appropriate solution due to environmental impacts, loss of potential valuable resource and cost. In the six months ending December 2017, the company turned a net profit of $15.7m, and it's request for government assistance has been criticised. New Zealand King Salmon Company chief executive Grant Rosewarne tells Susie Ferguson: "We are a wealthy company, but that's a $20m fund from government to get a greener NZ, we've only applied for $116,000 - a small proportion. We're putting in $175,000 of our own money."