Northern Territory crocodile skins sought after by European fashion houses

Australian export case study

Northern Territory company, Porosus Pty Ltd, is producing some of the finest quality crocodile skins in the world.

All their highly-prized skins go to Europe to be made up into exclusive accessories for leading fashion houses in Paris.

Porosus* is Australia’s largest commercial producers of the Crocodylus Porosus (saltwater crocodile).

Established in 1981, the Porosus farm has undergone a multi-million dollar infrastructure upgrade, and currently houses more than 60,000 animals.

The skin of the Crocodylus Porosus is renowned for its small scale size but farming the saltwater crocodile is difficult and dangerous, because these are the most aggressive of the crocodile species.

Porosus Director, Mick Burns, said that farming high volumes of perfect skins is always a challenge, and added that exporting is also a challenge – of a different kind.

“We have to export if we want to grow,” said Mr Burns. “Markets in Australia do not exist for this business.

“Growing the business has to be done hand-in-hand with major overseas buyers. A hundred per cent of our focus is on export markets.”

Austrade has assisted Porosus in a number of ways with export marketing. “We have used an Export Market Development Grant, which made quite a difference, and Austrade Darwin has been particularly helpful in showing us how to approach the export opportunities available in our markets,” Mr Burns said.

* In September 2010, Porosus Pty Ltd won the Agribusiness Category for the Northern Territory Export Awards, and Northern Territory Exporter of the Year.