As the son of a fisherman, Llewellyn was raised amid the sea-faring community and industrious factory worker of St Helenabay. At the age of sixteen, he began working in the bustling canneries during school holidays. By the time he turned twenty-two, he had joined the permanent staff of the largest sardine cannery in southern-Africa. Remarkably, at just twenty-five, he became the youngest individual to manage an entire shift, overseeing both production workers and quality assurance personnel.

In 2006, equipped with expertise in food processing and a keen understanding of advanced food safety, Llewellyn joined a team of aquaculturists at an abalone farm on the west-coast. By the end of 2007 he had advanced to the role of production manager. Over the past eighteen years, Llewellyn has become a distinguished figure in aquaculture, specializing in abalone grow-out and particularly excelling in the field of nutrition. During his time at the farm, the company has expanded its reach by acquiring additional aquaculture businesses, and the operations he managed have experienced a remarkable threefold growth increase.

However, not everything went smoothly. As early as 2011, Llewellyn became acutely aware of the ocean’s changing conditions and the detrimental effects they were having on the water chemistry of the farm. Parasites and diseases began to proliferate, yet his reports were dismissed as instances of “poor husbandry”. Determined to save the farm, Llewellyn embarked on a mission to address these challenges. For the past decade, he has meticulously replicated the results of his experiments, making small yet crucial adjustments to the conditions in which abalone are nurtured, as well as to their feeding practices. These efforts resulted in healthier, more resilient abalone better equipped to withstand disease and parasites. Notably, Llewellyn became the first abalone farmer to produce abalone in RAS and successfully treated seawater to control alkalinity levels- an important factor, as higher alkalinity directly impacts shellfish health.

Llewellyn brings to the FSRI his concern for the environment and offers his extensive knowledge of land-based aquaculture, mass abalone production and food safety. Lewellyn adds hands-on and astute management practices in both production and processing operations to the FSRI.