Closer cooperation will help the whole community

Heidi Ebey Grønkjær, the project manager at Konsumfisk, a cluster established to contribute to sustaining and revitalising three harbour towns on the Danish west coast.

Three Danish harbours on the west coast of Jutland have entered into a collaboration that brings together all the main actors – fishermen, auctions, buyers, processors, and service providers – in an alliance that seeks to expand the opportunities offered by the high quality fresh fish that is landed and traded each day. Called Konsumfisk, the collaboration ultimately hopes to attract more boats, higher volumes of fish, increase value addition, and draw more jobs and people to the area.

The restructuring in the Danish fisheries sector over the last 15 years has resulted in greater concentration of the fleet in fewer harbours. Several of the smaller harbours are no longer hubs for the fishing industry as the boats have gone and with them the ancillary industries tied to the boats. Today the main Danish fishing harbours are on the west coast of Jutland and include Hvide Sande, Thyborøn, Hanstholm, Hirtshals and Skagen. Strandby on the east coast of northern Jutland and Nexø on Bornholm are the other two main Danish harbours. These changes which can be attributed to several factors including the capacity adjustment of the fleet, falling landings of industrial species, compliance with conservation objectives, and a decrease in cod catches, are ongoing and will result in a sector with a very different structure than existed fifteen years ago. These changes also have an impact on the harbours where the fleets are based and to maintain their relevance and their status as hubs for the industry some harbours are taking initiatives that will add to their attractions, bringing in additional vessels, jobs, and opportunities.

Fish quality drives progress

Three Danish harbours on the west coast of Jutland, Thyborøn, Hvide Sande, and Thorsminde, have formally established a collaboration that seeks to exploit the high quality of the fish that is landed to bring ideas, investments, people, and employment opportunities to the area. The core of the cluster is the three harbours, the local fishing associations that together represent over 400 fishermen, and the fish auction company that has a branch in each of the three harbours. In addition, there are the service companies including electricians, smiths, and nets and rope suppliers, as well as the fish traders and processors associated with the harbours. One of the most important selling points for fish from the three harbours is the quality of the catch. Heidi Grønkjær, project manager, Konsumfisk, explains that working on the quality of the fish has been a priority for a couple of years now and the efforts are starting to bear fruit. The quality is determined among other things by the length of the fishing trip and vessels these days are typically only at sea for three or four days compared to 10 days in the past. The fish when it comes ashore is naturally fresher after a three-day trip, but other measures also make a difference. Vessels now have ice on board and the fish when it is caught is usually sorted, gutted and laid on ice in trays, reducing handling when it comes on shore to a minimum. Fish like this is termed sea-packaged and is known for its high quality.

The quality of the catch in turn attracts buyers to the electronic auction. The software comes from a private provider and links the sellers with buyers, who are physically present in the hall, as well as with some 150 buyers throughout Europe, who are bidding electronically. All the three auctions are connected to the system so the buyers at all three places see the same thing on the screens. The auctions are interested in delivering the fish as quickly as possible to ensure that the buyer is provided with the best quality and will therefor often arrange for the transport using one of the local logistics firms so that the fish can be delivered to the buyer’s door within the next 24 hours. The emphasis on quality is well-known to the buyers physically present at the auction, who are familiar with the boats and the skippers, and know where the best fish comes from. But helped by modern technology this reputation is gradually spreading to other countries, says Ms Grønkjær. Every day text messages can be sent to all the buyers informing them of the quantities, species, and the boats that have landed the fish. Buyers can inform their customers and then based on their response can bid for the fish. The technology also allows the fishers to watch the auction remotely and see how prices are developing.

Advertisements

Better dialogue between fishers, buyers, and others

Konsumfisk however is aiming higher than just trying to encourage fishermen to look after their fish on board to improve the quality. By bringing the fishermen and the buyers together into one organisation, we create a forum, where they can talk to each other, says Ms Grønkjær. This is important because the two parties can then better understand each other’s needs and requirements and can conceivably even plan for long term changes in the sector, such as a decline in the number of fishermen. In line with its mandate Konsumfisk organises workshops, seminars, and dialogue meetings and has also implemented some projects. One of these, for example, involved getting a buyer at the auction to start supplying a canteen in the nearby city of Holstebro. Now, from never serving fish the canteen has started offering fish once a week to its users. This project, although small, in fact served two purposes. On the one hand it linked a buyer with a new customer, while on the other it either created new fish consumers or persuaded some people to eat more fish, both outcomes that Konsumfisk was created to achieve.

Konsumfisk was established three years ago and was given an extension from the start of 2015 for a further two years. Funding comes from a fee that the members pay as well as a contribution from the local commune. Over the last three years the organisation has established a name and a reputation for itself as a link to the fishermen of the west coast of Jutland and has been involved in events promoting fish consumption across the country. Konsumfisk is a channel to the fishermen, says Heidi Grønkjær, so if a buyer wants a quantity of a certain kind of fish on a regular basis he can get in touch with us, and we will help him. Now there is a demand for similar organisations in other parts of the country as people can see this is a useful platform to initiate activi
ties. Many of the activities that Konsumfisk launches are to add value to the product. Demand, even for high quality fish, will sometimes drop and prices will fall too. In situations like this it is important to try and develop products from the fish that can boost its value or to find markets that are willing to pay a higher price. There are also seasons when the quality of the fish is not as high for biological reasons and rather than being sold as fresh fish on ice, it may have more potential in some other form. Konsumfisk tests ideas for products on focus groups to assist industry and give it new input into consumer preferences, but also looks into the potential of using parts of the fish for example, heads, guts, skin or bones, that normally would be discarded. Getting consumers to either start eating fish or to eat more of it is another target for Konsumfisk. Increased sales of fish will benefits the entire supply chain, but also improve the health and wellbeing of consumers and is arguably better for the environment if it substitutes the consumption of meat. Ms Gronkjær has worked with Fiskebranchen, an organisation dedicated to increasing fish consumption in Denmark, putting together events for this purpose.

Landings of industrial species down, fish for humans up

Of the three harbours in Konsumfisk Thyborøn is by far the largest. In fact, in terms of tonnage of fish landed, it is the second largest of all the Danish harbours being overtaken only by Skagen. Hvide Sande is considerably smaller with roughly 20% of the landings in Thyborøn, while Thorsminde does not count among the 10 largest Danish harbours, which accounted for 91% of landings and 88% of the value in 2013. Landings at Thyborøn have fallen over the last five years from 285,000 tonnes in 2009 to 186,000 tonnes in 2013, a decline of 34%, while in Hvide Sande, which saw a decrease over the same period from 53,000 tonnes to 46,000 tonnes, it was proportionately less drastic at 14%. At the same time the value increased in Thyborøn from DKK422m to DKK532m and in Hvide Sande from DKK131m to DKK190m. In Danish harbours as a whole landings have fallen by almost a fifth from 1.1m tonnes to 847,000 tonnes while their value has increased by 28% from DKK2.7bn to DKK3.4bn. The decline in landings at Thyborøn can be largely attributed to the Danish industrial fishery, which went from 270,000 tonnes in 2009 to 148,000 tonnes in 2013. Danish landings at Thyborøn of fish for human consumption increased from 7,400 tonnes in 2009 to 10,000 tonnes in 2013, though the average price went from DKK18,200 to DKK16,200 per tonne. Landings of flat fish have increased steadily over the five year period. In Hvide Sande the picture is similar, landings of industrial species declined almost 20% from 2009 to 38,600 tonnes in 2013, while landings of species for human consumption over the same period went up by 30% to 7,000 tonnes mostly due to an increase in Danish landings of flatfish.

Konsumfisk would like to see more vessels coming into the harbours Thyborøn, Hvide Sande, and Thorsminde. Both Thyborøn and Hvide Sande have seen a decline in the number of landings between 2009 and 2013 for industrial fish as well as fish for human consumption. Landings by foreign vessels also declined, though in Hvide Sande they are marginal. Attracting more vessels to the ports is part of Konsumfisk’s remit as vessels provide jobs for all kinds of service companies, but if more vessels land at Konsumfisk’s harbours less will be landing at other harbours – a conundrum that may have to be resolved at some point in the future.