After 36 years, Newlyn fish auction is to go online.

Back in 1994, a number of skipper owners, fish merchants and other harbour representatives met to hear from Europe's largest fresh produce auction company of the benefits to fish selling that a remote computerised auction could bring to Newlyn - England's largest fishing port which, at the time, exported around 90% of the fish landed into EU markets like France and Spain. A remote auction would also have been the first of its kind for a fish market in the UK.

A full thirty six years later it seems that such an auction is to be installed in Newlyn later this year for W. Stevenson & Son (Newlyn fish auction).

Every auction or cluster determines for itself how many fields are needed to describe its product (size, class etc.) and composes its own catalogues

Following the current market situation and the need for (further) digitisation of their fish auctions, Shetland Seafood Auctions (Lerwick) and W. Stevenson & Sons (Newlyn) are next to fully engage in the digital trading platform in the cloud, KOSMOS.

Shetland Seafood Auctions opts for 100% online auctioning. For the migration to the new KOSMOS platform, they have chosen to provide an extra clock, thanks to which they are able to sell the fish via 2 clocks to a total of 50 registered users.

Martin Leyland, CEO: “We have chosen the KOSMOS trading platform because it will allow buyers to purchase fish from Shetland on any device. Remote buyers can only access our current system on a Windows PC or laptop. The KOSMOS system also offers buyers access to more information on screen and has the potential to speed up the sale. This will enable us to sell and distribute a higher volume of fish landings.

The installation of KOSMOS in August 2020 coincides with the opening of two new fish market premises which will hold double the capacity of the previous fish markets in Lerwick.”

Shout auction Stevenson & Sons has ordered KOSMOS for two clocks for a total of 100 users, under the impetus of its shareholder Ocean Fish. We will link KOSMOS to the current auction infrastructure, enabling the auction to keep using its system. 

KOSMOS will communicate with the current data input terminals, the Marel grader and the back-office package A-Fish. For each transaction, a transaction ticket for the organisation of the internal logistics will be printed. The installation is scheduled to start in October 2020. 

Both fish auctions confirm the trend that online auctioning has become part of today’s society. The revenues derived in this manner will become an increasingly important part of the revenues of any selling organisation. This process is only accelerated by the coronavirus.