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Scalloway Fish Market


Urabug
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The new Lerwick fish market is going to cost £6.3 million. They have to be built to high hygiene standards these days and temperature controlled.

Never heard of anyone being poisoned or coming to any harm eating fish landed  anywhere in Shetland .

 

 Fish is now a luxury costing an arm and a leg and it is no wonder with the cost of not only the boats but the fish markets.

 

All a bit OTT to me.

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MuckleJoannie is right, there are quality control issues which have to be taken seriously. The massive increase in volumes through Scalloway is a success story for the Council and if we want to see that continue we have to spend a bit of money to ensure we have the proper facilities.

 

The price of fish is market driven, supply and demand, not something the Council building a new fish market will greatly influence. 

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MuckleJoannie is right, there are quality control issues which have to be taken seriously. The massive increase in volumes through Scalloway is a success story for the Council and if we want to see that continue we have to spend a bit of money to ensure we have the proper facilities.

 

The price of fish is market driven, supply and demand, not something the Council building a new fish market will greatly influence. 

Totally agree quality and hygiene are paramount,but this is just another of those EU regulations that we in the UK comply to with little or no opposition,

 

They say jump, we say how high instead of why!

 

If my memory serves me right the opening of the old fish market at Scalloway was delayed because there was no fire hose ! Not much to burn in a fish market but ma'be a boat might cause a problem.

 

Out of this £1,000.000 of fish that is on average landed daily how much of this revenue actually remains in Shetland,because as far as I can see most of it passes through Shetland like "a dose of salts"with little or no processing taking place.

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Keeping our grub clean and fresh is good and necessary, but there's being realistic and sensible about it, and then there's being bureaucratic and anal about it.....

 

The sea is anything but clean, especially inshore, fishing boats' decks and holds and fish boxes, by default of what they are and what they do, even with the best will in the world will never be able to be described as 'hygenic'. Nobody ever died when fish was sold on the pier with barely enough protected to stop the maas making off with some of it.....

 

Its a natural product, what of it is processed (and these days that seems to be virtually all of it) is well washed multiple times before it hits your table, and the rest folk should know to wash anyway. As long as folk are sensible and decent, keep what they sell from swilling around in oily bilges or spilling diesel on it when refuelling aboard boat, and stop any passing obnoxious oick from taking a pish or a sharn in a box of fish when its ashore, anything more is pretty much Elf & Safety gone mad, the funeral of common sense happened a good few years ago.

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Ultimately we are paying for a modern, fit for purpose facility although I am not versed on the particular food hygeine rules it had to comply with I imagine much of this is UK legislation as well as EU. 

 

I think you misunderstood the article re the £1m per day. It is £1m per day landed from the area around Shetland (what would in effect be our EEZ if we had control of it). Only a small percentage of this is actually landed in Shetland. 

Increased capacity, via two new fish markets, can only help increase our economic benefit from our most valuable resource. 

 

Just a shame the Norwegian factory idea in Whalsay never came to fruition or we could be massively increasing our processing capabilities as well. 

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Thanks for putting me right on that one whalsa,but of course this raises more issues as if more fish is landed then who is going to ferry them out as the freight services appears to be struggling as it is at present.

 

I suppose by the time the markets are complete we may have new supa- dupa ferries and more vessels :rofl:

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I think you misunderstood the article re the £1m per day. It is £1m per day landed from the area around Shetland (what would in effect be our EEZ if we had control of it). Only a small percentage of this is actually landed in Shetland.

 

So, caught within 200 miles/median then, yes?

 

What percentage for error does the £1 Million include, given that much (the majority?) of this figure isn't caught by Shetland boats, nor for that matter, UK boats, but foreign ones from EU nations who have reputations of being considerable less asinine in following EU regs. than the UK, and indeed boats from non-EU nations, where their time in, and catch tonnage from Shetland waters often only forms a small percentage of their overall time at sea and eventual landing.

 

After all, it wouldn't be partcularly unusual for a landing from a boat to have come from a mixture of Shetland, Faroese and Norwegian or Irish waters, and there's nothing but the Skipper's word for what came from where.

Edited by Ghostrider
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I think you misunderstood the article re the £1m per day. It is £1m per day landed from the area around Shetland (what would in effect be our EEZ if we had control of it). Only a small percentage of this is actually landed in Shetland.

 

So, caught within 200 miles/median then, yes?

 

What percentage for error does the £1 Million include, given that much (the majority?) of this figure isn't caught by Shetland boats, nor for that matter, UK boats, but foreign ones from EU nations who have reputations of being considerable less asinine in following EU regs. than the UK, and indeed boats from non-EU nations, where their time in, and catch tonnage from Shetland waters often only forms a small percentage of their overall time at sea and eventual landing.

 

After all, it wouldn't be partcularly unusual for a landing from a boat to have come from a mixture of Shetland, Faroese and Norwegian or Irish waters, and there's nothing but the Skipper's word for what came from where.

 

 

 

http://www.nafc.uhi.ac.uk/t4-media/one-web/nafc/research/document/shetland-fisheries-statistics/statistics/Shetland_Fisheries_Statistics_2016.pdf

 

http://www.nafc.uhi.ac.uk/news/1-million-per-day.html

 

Here you go Ghostrider, you can see for yourself. Shetlands boats caught an estimated 15% of this total.

 

I think you are getting at the overall figure being considerably higher, which I would tend to agree with for the reasons you state. Although I have not yet had time to go through the report in detail. 

 

 

PS. Remember Urabug, fish can theoretically be landed/processed then shipped out again on reefers etc rather than going via Northlink. 

 

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Would I be correct in that those reefers carry only pelagic fish :-Herring,Mackeral and possibly Blue Whiting, and most if not all of this is handled completely at Shetland Catch if I'm not mistaken completely clear of the fish markets.

 

So any expansion to the fish markets would be mainly for white fish not pelagic or am I again completely wrong again.

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You are not wrong, but if the scotgov subsidised ferry’s can’t provide a service then other options are available. Just as other cargo vessels have to be used for some goods such as sand and recycled waste, and as used to be - livestock boats. We all pay for the subsidies that serco get now. It is not a magic gift . The fish markets help bring the wealth that makes the place, especially Lerwick, viable.

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You are not wrong, but if the scotgov subsidised ferry’s can’t provide a service then other options are available. Just as other cargo vessels have to be used for some goods such as sand and recycled waste, and as used to be - livestock boats. We all pay for the subsidies that serco get now. It is not a magic gift . The fish markets help bring the wealth that makes the place, especially Lerwick, viable.

Spot on. I would like to see not only expanded factory and landing facilities but also an expanded Shetland fleet. We will see what Brexit brings, along with other potential local developments. The raw materials are here, the Shetland public should get greater benefit from them. 

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Was it not the result of the high fuel costs that many boats started landing more fish in Shetland.

 

The cost of "tripping" to Peterhead ,Fraserburgh ect was not cost effective, but if the cost of freight should escalate or become unreliable then it might become more profitable for boats to head south themselves again.

 

We have to remember there is a lot of extra handling involved when fish is landed here in Shetland and it all costs money. 

 

I cannot see it would be profitable to have a vessel just to convey fish to the mainland.

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