TURKEY
Y. Denizer is a long-established ďŹ sh wholesale merchant in Trabzon
Fifth generation prepares to take the reins The local municipality in Trabzon rents out the local ďŹ sh wholesale market to traders. The market is open every day all year long and traders buy and sell ďŹ sh freshly caught by local vessels big as well as small. Imports and domestically produced farmed ďŹ sh are also traded at the market.
T
he fish wholesale market in Trabzon comprises a complex of several shops that at 04.00 in the morning are a hive of activity. Trucks drive in and out, fish is loaded and unloaded, the catch is inspected, consignments are auctioned, prices negotiated, and lots of Turkish tea is drunk, while in the background the local imam calls the faithful to prayer. Recep Denizer’s family has been in the fish wholesale business since the 1870s. His great grandfather, grandfather and father preceded him in the trade and now the next generation, one of his sons, works with him learning the ropes. The wholesale trade is an important link in the distribution chain that
carries the fish from the vessel to the processors, retailers, hotels, restaurants, and catering businesses, and the fishmeal and fish oil factories. Although wholesalers earn on the commissions they get from buying and selling fish, they are often linked with certain fishermen with whom they have agreements and to whom they sometimes extend credit, which gives them lot of power.
Government encourages the formation of cooperatives and unions of producers The price for the fish follows demand and supply and is also affected by the quality. Some
After an auction boxes of fish are reorganised before to being distributed. 38
Recep Denizer's family has been involved in the fish wholesale trade ever since he can remember.
fishers are better at catching and handling the fish then others as a quick look at two boxes caught by two different fishers shows. If demand for the fish and its quality are both high the price increases, while if catches have been good and there is a lot of fish for sale the price declines. In the EU there are Producer Organisations, whose primary role is to coordinate the supply of fish to markets and to increase the return to member fishers, but they also work to prevent discards and illegal fishing, and to improve catch quality. In Turkey the government encourages the formation of PO-type-bodies to strengthen the role of the fishers in the distribution chain. The auctions are carried out by the wholesalers who start with a
high initial price and then lower it, until there is a bid (Dutch auction). The fish is landed at the port not far away and carried in small trucks to the wholesalers. Prices (on 4 October) are TRY75 (~EUR12) for a 15 kg box of small horse mackerel, while large horse mackerel auctioned earlier in the morning fetched TRY100 to 120. Mr Denizer has an agreement with fishermen for whom he sells the fish. The fishers will inform him of their catches before arriving in the port. The catch could be any of several species – anchovies, horse mackerel, and bonito, that are all caught with purse seines, or red mullet and whiting that are caught with trawls. Anchovy is fished at night and arrives early in the morning, while bonito and other species arrive during the
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