Fresh flounder in season with low discard rates
Royal Greenland has made contracts with Danish fishermen to secure fresh flounder supply from the Baltic Sea to our factory in Koszalin, Poland throughout the season. “The concrete outcome is high product quality, stable supply, full traceability, shorter transportation and practically no discard” says Purchasing Manager, Michael Engbjerg.
According to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) the flounder, which is a non-regulated species, is subject to a significant discard in both the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The reason for discarding flounder is that it is often caught as by-catch in other fisheries for flatfish and demersal species, and discarded right after catch. Therefore, today no complete data on the total catch of the species exists.
Royal Greenland welcomes the initiatives in the European Common Fisheries Policy reform for the European fisheries to become well managed, sustainable and without discard. The reform will be coming into effect in 2014.
Read more about Royal Greenland's own fisheries
Contracted flounder fishery – a grand success
Royal Greenland does not have own fishery for flounder, but has for many years bought a substantial part of the total landings of flounder from the Baltic Sea for processing in Koszalin, Poland. During the recent catching season action was taken to start buying the fresh flounder directly from the fishermen, and the close cooperation is a grand success for both parties.
The contracts are renewed every season where Royal Greenland offers a fixed price for a specified quality and tonnage per vessel and the coordination between the vessels is done by the factory according to the capacity on the fileting line. This close contact and direct co-operation entices both fishermen and factory personnel to work together to optimize product quality.
The quality parameters:
- Freshness – fishermen must spend up to 3 days at sea incl. travel time
- Cooling chain – fish must be packed with ice immediately after catch
- Size – The netting in the fishing gear must be optimized to the target sizes
- Full traceability – All data regarding exact catch area and time of catch must follow the fish
- Eventual discard must be justified – guiding principle is that no discard is accepted
The fish must be caught in a mixed fishery with e.g. cod in the Baltic Sea and the fishermen are free to appoint their choice of landing place in Poland, Sweden or Denmark according to their choice of fishing ground. Royal Greenland arranges the transportation directly from the quay where the fish is unloaded from the vessel.
“This new way of buying the fish has given us a much better raw material, the fishermen know that they will get a good price if the quality is in top - and we can manage the inflow of fresh supply to the factory” says Michael Engbjerg, and he adds “We know that some fishermen discard especially the small flounders because the price historically has been low, now we can pay a good price and actively contribute to fighting discard”.
Future perspective
Based on the successful start of the flounder contract fishery, Royal Greenland is now working to establish the same type of co-operation in other North Atlantic areas related to other relevant species.
