Norway’s mackerel season has begun!
The fish is especially popular in the Far East. To get there, they are transported in refrigerated containers from the west coast of Norway via Rotterdam.
Here we go at last! In early October, Norwegian fishermen could breathe a sigh of relief: After a two-week delay, this year’s mackerel fishing season could finally get started. “The bad weather, but also the nutritional status of the fish forced the fishermen to wait, says Senior Sales representative Lars Hansen from Hevold Shipping A/S,Oslo General agent for Hapag-Lloyd AG in Norway. But now the wind has calmed down and the mackerel have put on a lot of fat. And the fishermen have enjoyed some very good results: In just a single week, they pulled over 52,000 metric tons of mackerel out of the cold North Atlantic – which is worth more than 730,000 million crowns (about €77 million).
As soon as Norwegian fishermen cast their trawl and purse seine nets or long-lines, Hapag-Lloyd in Norway starts making its own preparations. The tasty fish is a valuable export good and especially popular in Asia and a ‘must’ for every Japanese in their favorite dish Sushi. The biggest import nations are China (70,000 tons in 2017), Japan (60,000 tons) and South Korea (38,000 tons), but there is also a large appetite for mackerel in Turkey (22,000 tons) and Nigeria (12,800 tons).
Transporting this perishable good in so-called reefers also presents challenges to Hapag-Lloyd’s experts. For starters, the many production plants are spread out along Norway’s west coast, and Hapag-Lloyd only learns on short notice which plant it has to pick up its consignments from. The reason for this can be found in the structure of Norway’s fisheries market. “The fishermen report their catch and auction it while they are still on the high seas,” explains Hansen. During the high season, these auctions take place four times a day. It then takes another 24 to 36 hours before the fish is brought to shore, where it can be further processed and packaged.
“Our job then is to pick up the empty reefers from Rotterdam and get them to the right place on time,” Hansen continues. Smaller feeder vessels are the preferred means of transport on Norway’s jagged west coast, with its fjords cutting deep into the land. The temperature-sensitive natural product is then transported by feeders back to Rotterdam, where the steel boxes are transshipped onto large container ships destined for the Far East, Africa, Europe and other parts of the world – as part of a demanding and lucrative business for Hapag-Lloyd.
© Hapag-Lloyd AG