The “Glorious Twelfth” is the name given to the start of the grouse shooting season in Scotland, always the 12th of August. The 12th of August was also glorious for Shetland Catch because we had the first herring landing of the season from the Fraserburgh registered Ocean Venture. She had a fine catch averaging almost 300gms, unusually large for herring from this area. There are other boats from the S&S group at sea so we hope for more landings from them later this week.

Not to be outdone, the Faroese vessel, Jupiter, landed a large catch of herring averaging 340gms from fishing grounds around Jan Mayen island. The quality was very good indeed with no feed present.

The Ocean Venture was back in again on Friday 15th August with another good catch of 220gms average herring caught east of Fair Isle so they’ve certainly had a good week!

The Shetland fleet are staying ashore to enjoy the annual Inter Club sailing regatta, held in Lerwick between the 13-16 August, and will start fishing when they’ve put their trophies away!

Unfortunately the herring quota has been cut by 40% this year so our season will only be 3-4 weeks long. This puts a lot of strain on our production staff to get as much fish through the factory in as short a time as possible.  On a brighter note, the entire Scottish pelagic industry has been recognised by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for responsible and sustainable fishing practise in the North Sea herring fishery and we can therefore offer our customers MSC-label herring products for the first time.

The Scottish Pelagic Sustainability Group (SPSG) hosted a lunch in Peterhead at the beginning of August to publicise the unique cooperation between all sectors of the Scottish pelagic industry and the guests of honour were First Minister of Scotland, The Rt Hon Alex Salmond and Mr Rupert Howes, from the MSC organisation.

The mackerel fishery is currently undergoing assessment by MSC and a decision is expected within 2 months. This will assist further growth in our European mackerel sales.

Jolene Garriock, Marketing Executive, has left to travel to New Zealand and Canada so we wish her all the very best of luck in pastures new. Jolene’s been a valuable member of our sales & marketing team and will be our loss and somebody else’s gain. Jolene’s duties are being undertaken jointly by Amanda Isbister and Miranda Gall. Amanda’s no stranger to marketing having worked with our sales & marketing team and Shaw Marketing before.

Kindly contact our sales team if you have any requirements for whole round or filleted herring products. As always the email address is sales@shetlandcatch.com or telephone +44 1595 695740.