Photographer: Jason Alden / Bloomberg
Photographer: Jason Alden / Bloomberg
Scottish fishermen are willing to sail for another 48 hours in Denmark, where their catch could be twice as high after home prices plummeted after Brexit.
A boat loaded with 15 tons of choline that arrived Thursday night should have placed its Scottish captain 225,000 crowns ($ 36,700) more than it would have done in Petershead, the largest fishing port in the Sea. Britain, said Jesper Kongsted, a fish auctioneer in Hanstholm on the North Sea coast of Denmark. .
UK shoppers are moving away from more expensive varieties of fish, as red tape and queues can mean they are not fresh when it reaches European customers. Scottish seafood said prices for many seafood species fell by 40% to 50% this week, with some falling to 80%.
“Boris Johnson probably forgot to explain what it would mean to leave the EU for the ability of fishermen to sell in the European market,” Kongsted said.
Read more: A quick analysis of why fishing has been so important in trade talks
The impact of the Brexit transition on the Scottish seafood industry has been far-reaching, ranging from computer failures to lack of paper clarity, making export efforts “almost impossible,” Donna Fordyce, executive director at Seafood From Scotland, said in -a statement.
With about a third of Scottish vessels anchored and others redirecting to Denmark, many fishermen are on land and the processing industry, which has 10,000 employees, is suffering.
James Withers, chief executive of Scotland Food & Drink, estimates that seafood traders are currently losing £ 1 million ($ 1.4 million) in exports a day due to customs chaos.
The UK landed almost £ 1 billion in fish in 2019, much of it in Scotland.
“No party can solve this problem overnight, but the losses for the sector are growing and the situation is urgent,” Fordyce said. “We have days to work – not weeks.”
The British government has promised a £ 100 million package to help rebuild the country’s fishing fleet and the industry’s aging infrastructure.
Read more: The Brexit transaction may mean less British code for fish and chips
Back in Denmark, Kongsted believes that unloading boats in the Nordic country is speeding up an immediate problem and that the number of arriving trawlers could eventually decrease as solutions are found in the UK.
– With the assistance of Joe Mayes