Westbury-based Cranka Lures manufactures high-quality fishing lures for a national and international market but has plans to drastically change the way it manufactures its products.

While fishing and associated industries are experiencing a downturn due to social distancing restrictions, Cranka Lures owner Steven Steers said it gave him the opportunity to plan.

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"We are taking this downturn and seeing it as an opportunity to look inwards and look at all of our operations and see where and how we could do better," he said.

Cranka Lures manufactures its lures in China but Mr Steers said he was working towards relocating all those operations.

"We found that we just aren't able to be across the manufacturing process, the quality, the timing and all those things, while the manufacturing is being done in China."

His Chinese manufacturing operations employ 22 people and Mr Steers said he was hoping to employ the same amount of people in Tasmania when the relocation is complete.

He said moving the manufacturing to Tasmania would allow greater transparency and control over the product from start to finish and would also provide them an opportunity to leverage off Tasmania's brand.

"Tasmania has this clean, green, quality brand and we think we fit in quite well with that story," he said.

Particular fishing lures wax and wane in popularity depending on the season or competition, Mr Steer said sometimes if a lure was used to win a fishing competition there would be a run on that particular type.

"That type, the same colour, gets really popular for a while, but in China we need to have minimum orders so we have to order a certain amount of a particular colour regardless of popularity."

Mr Steer said the coronavirus pandemic had put a halt on his operations as people were not fishing during the restrictions but said he believed demand would spike right back up.

"We are taking this opportunity now but I think that when things start getting back to normal and people can go fishing again it will spike right up again as people get back to doing what they love and getting back outside," he said.

He said manufacturing had a bright future in Tasmania and he believed after the coronavirus pandemic had waned you would see more businesses relocating or decided to manufacture in Tasmania or Australia, wherever they were based.

"When I look at the major players in the lures industry they are all doing in-house manufacturing," he said.

The weak Australia dollar against the US dollar was driving the change, Mr Steer said.

"There is definitely a trend towards manufacturing at home, and I think that is mostly to do with the exchange rate."

Mr Steer said manufacturing would give Tasmania and Australia a sense of self-reliance and he definitely could see the industry playing a critical role in the state's economic recovery.

Manufacturing of goods, along with advanced manufacturing such as Definium in Launceston has not experienced decline during the coronavirus pandemic.

It is expected the demand for advanced manufacturing goods will increase as the country emerges from the pandemic and Mr Steer said Cranka Lures was taking that opportunity to create positive change for the state economy.

He said he aimed to start employing people as soon as he could get the business back up and running and restrictions ease.

Cranka Lures is based at Westbury and you can find their products online.

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