Peterhead is about 30 miles north of Aberdeen on the most easterly point of mainland Scotland. Peterhead is also Europe's largest fishing port and £128 million worth of fish passed through the port in 2008.
The fish market is a refrigerated building. When fishing vessels dock in the preceding 24 hours, their fish are stored in chill rooms until the market opens at 7am. Boxes with fish are then laid out by boat and always in the same order of species. So if the Ocean Bounty landed 50 boxes of Greens (ie Cod) then the cod boxes would all be laid out in a long line, followed by haddock hake, Blacks (Coley/Saithe), whiting, flatfish, monkfish etc and then finally Others. Then you'd start on Lunar Bow's catch, starting with the cod, haddock, hake, coley, whiting, flatfish, monkfish etc. Only one species is sold at a time by auction, so all those wanting cod follow the auctioneer down Ocean Bounty's cod catch and then on to Lunar Bow's cod catch while someone else deals with the haddock catches. It's total chaos, but once you've been there for a little while things start to become a little clearer.
The local dialect doesn't, however. They also use odd terminology which once understood makes everything make a LOT more sense. So they might offer 70 quid for a pick (repeated 10 times in the same loud voice). This means that whomever accepts the offer can then pick the number of boxes they want out of the total available from that boat. Most boats have reputations so certain buyers tend to stick to certain boats. They make sure the boxes are around the right weight (normally about 50Kg) by lifting it up but they may tip it over to check the quality is the same right through the box. Getting first pick means getting the best fish and you generally pay a small premium. Once those have gone the auctioneer offers the rest of the row and finally 'the shot' which is whatever is left.
Increasingly, quality determines the price and much of quality depends on how the fish are handled once caught and chilled on board the boat. Buyers signal their intention to buy at that price through a variety of unfathomable methods, most of which I completely failed to catch. Somehow boxes and boxes of fish were sold from right under my nose despite my best efforts to see a nod here, a shake of the head there, a wave or even eye contact. I did see one guy stand right beside the auctioneer and give him a deft whack on the back whenever he agreed to a price, but foot stamping, coughing and the ol' nudge and a wink are other methods.
Peterhead is not an open auction market so there are no random punters watching what's going on. Apart from me, there was not one woman in the place. It caused quite a stir when I first walked in with my fashion-wellies and sea-blue coat, but I was quickly hustled out by the harbour master, provided with standard white wellies, a hat plus hair net and a white coat and I blended right in with the rest of them, except maybe for a lack of paunch or foul mouth. But the banter that goes on between those guys...there's a very strong community feel in the place.
Within 90 minutes 5000 mt of fish is sold and immediately hauled out of the market by transporters who take the fish direct to processors or on to London or wherever. We followed a box of mackerel over to the other side of the harbour and the processing plant we were visiting who set to work on it while we met with management to discuss some of the sustainability issues coming through, particularly carbon miles which retailers are starting to ask for. By lunchtime we had caught up with our filleted mackerel, now lying in 'butterly' fillets in the deep freeze (-25) having been blast frozen. The speed with which fresh fish can have the freshness 'locked in' by blast freezing means that frozen fish can often actually be fresher than 'fresh fish' at retail counters which have spent up to 8 days chilled at sea and a further 48 hours getting to where they need to go.
When the mackerel season opens on 1 June then the factory will run around the clock for 3 months, basically until the quota is used up, before it will switch back to whitefish for the winter. A lot of fishermen talked about the need to let the market regulate quotas - allowing fishermen to choose when to go to sea rather than being forced into certain 'open days' and 'days in port' which are predetermined, regardless of the weather. I don't deal with these issues so much anymore but it still reminded me of many of the meetings I had with fishermen while working in Brussels. That was 10 years ago and nothing seems to have changed.
The market in full swing
Grouping the purchases for transport
How the fish is laid out. When the EU used to organise quotas by 'number of boxes' then these boxes could be piled high in order to get extra catch through. Now it's (loosely) controlled by weight (buyers lift boxes to check weight and will bid accordingly)
Catch laid out by boat with the buyers advancing
