Replacing lost boxes is costing thousands Thursday, September 20, 2012The CornishmanFollow NEWLYN Harbour Commission says it is having to spend tens of thousands of pounds a year replacing fish boxes which could be better spent elsewhere in the port.
The port authority spent £10,000 in the first quarter of 2012 on the boxes it provides to fisherman to display and sell their catch in market. Replacing lost fish boxes at Newlyn market, like the ones pictured above, cost the harbour commission £10,000 in the first quarter of the year alone. • •
Harbour master Andrew Munson said the commission's stock had fallen so low at points that demand had outstripped the number available in the market for use. "The fisherman might take a feed of fish home themselves and forget to take that back," he said. "Merchants take stock of fish away in the boxes; then they don't get returned. "We let them take the fish off the market in boxes under the condition that they bring them back in a clean condition on the same day. I had some come back only yesterday and the bottom of the box said the first week of August. That merchant had our boxes in excess of a month. "This week we ran out of boxes, but I'm lucky I've kept a store for an emergency."
The problem is one shared by other ports across the country. Plymouth Trawler Agents (PTA) Ltd spends £20,000 to £30,000 a year on new boxes. PTA's Mark Heslop said: "They cost £10 a go; every year that's considerable. The amount we spend on it could employ a couple of people." However, Andy Wheeler from the Cornish Fish Producers' Organisation said the problem was almost unavoidable: "With such a movement of fish up and down the county, over to Brittany and what have you, it's inevitable that they're going to get mixed up. "It's inevitable that if one fisherman gets a certain number of boxes taken, he'll take some. It's an inevitable side-effect of transporting fish. "A lot of fishermen send fish over to Brittany. Some of the boxes get stuck there; sometimes a French fisherman will mistake them for theirs. "They all have a colour code, but I know there are markets in Brittany that have the same colour code."
Missing Box story courtesy of the Cornishman