POLAND
Automation to characterise renovated factory
Gadus restructures its processing operations The Polish ďŹ shing eet is broadly divided into coastal vessels and those that ďŹ sh far out in the Baltic Sea. Both groups target the ďŹ ve species under quota (cod, herring, plaice, sprat, salmon) as well as various non-quota species. Cod is among the most valuable species targeted and the ďŹ sh has near iconic status among the eets of several countries in the region.
T
he problems affecting Baltic cod stocks are a source of concern among fishers, processors, NGOs as well as the authorities. Gadus is both a fishing company and a processor of whitefish and cod has a significant share in its product assortment. However, while Polish waters provide some of the cod raw material, the bulk is Atlantic cod imported from Norway and Iceland. This material is currently processed in one of the company’s three plants located a stone’s throw from each other in Gdynia. A restructuring that has just been initiated in the company will see the operations in the three plants being moved to one site.
Vertical integration supports high quality Gadus was established in 1996 by Dawid Sztormowski and initially only traded in fish. Three years later, at the age of 22, he bought his first vessels, two gillnetters, and since then the company has kept adding to its fleet at intervals. We were buying to have enough quota and to get more efficient vessels since quotas are allocated to vessels in Poland and are not tradeable, says Mr Sztormowski, adding that it made his investments in the fishing industry very complicated. His goal was to have vessels that could work for ten months in the year. Today, a little 56
over 20 years since he acquired his first vessel, the company owns 17 vessels (including one shared with another owner) of which seven are in operation. Of these, three fish for pelagics and work for six months, while three are cod boats and work for ten months, the other active vessel targets brown crab in the North Sea. In between acquiring vessels, the company also started processing the fish as Mr Sztormowski and his brother, who had also joined him, felt that being vertically integrated with both catching and processing offered a number of advantages, such as full control of each step in the value chain. Besides, it made for a good story to tell customers. The expansion into processing, however, made it imperative that there was enough raw material to feed the processing factory. The company’s next step was to set up a company on the Lofoten Islands, Gadus Norway, a packing station where fish is bought from Norwegian vessels, controlled for quality, packaged, and freighted to Poland. In 2018 a filleting plant was also set up in Norway which operates 4 months in the year, from January to April when the cod catches are at their peak. Thereafter the cod migrates to Svalbard and only bigger trawlers can catch it. From next year the plan is to fly fish from the Norwegian factory directly to China.
Dawid Sztormowski co-owns and runs Gadus, one of the biggest processors of whiteďŹ sh in Poland.
Primary, secondary and tertiary processed products The processed products that the company manufactures include semi-fried frozen products like fishfingers and fish nuggets that are typically produced from the company’s own catches of fish that have been frozen into blocks. Julita, the plant manager, explains how the blocks are first cut into logs on a band sawing machine and then further cut into fingers. The still-frozen fingers are placed in a steamer to thaw the surface slightly to better enable the flour or batter to stick. The fingers are then coated with crumbs or cornflakes, passed through a vibrator to remove any excess coating and finally passed into the fryer. The final product can take the form of a semi-fried
or fully-fried fishfinger, the difference being that the latter reach a core temperature of 70 degrees and so can be eaten directly, while the formed need further cooking before they are ready to eat. The fish fingers can have different proportions of fish and batter depending on the requirements of the customer. Other processed products include fish nuggets and similar products in different forms. Most of these are produced with saithe or Alaska pollock, which together with cod makes up the bulk of the raw material that the company processes.
Tight labour market forces switch to machines The company also tests new products periodically. Recently, for example, it was lightly salted fillets.
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