Sea urchins are overabundant on many temperate rocky reefs, leading to reductions in kelp cover and the creation of widespread barrens habitat. Kelp forest could recover or be actively restored, but only after urchins are reduced to low densities. Among many methods to reduce urchin densities, creating a new industry that captures urchins at sea and farms them on land, may be the most scalable. Over the last decade, we have progressed from proof-of-concept studies to commercial-scale experiments to demonstrate that valueless purple sea urchins (Heliocidaris erythrogramma) collected from barrens and fed specialized food in a land-based aquaculture facility create a commercial product. Within Port Phillip Bay, a recent survey of urchins of harvestable size (> 35 mm test diameter) estimated stock biomass at 9800 tons. Access to 300 tons per year (~ 3% of available biomass) is required to unlock the investment needed to establish a pump-ashore aquaculture facility. Changes to fisheries management arrangements are required to enable urchins barrens to be harvested. If barrens can be harvested, 50-100 hectares of reef will be available for kelp restoration efforts each year.