Yes, blink and you’ve missed it! The herring season finished on the 31st August when the Antares landed her last shot, less than 3 weeks after we began. This is our shortest herring season ever, which is due to the lack of quota. We did receive regular landings of good quality herring averaging 240-260gms through the short season and managed to produce a variety of whole round and filleted products for our existing customers. Unfortunately the lack of fish prevented us from supplying any new customers.

We have been well supported by the S&S Group and the Shetland vessels and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for their herring business and we hope to see them with mackerel soon.

Speaking of mackerel, preparations are underway for the beginning of the season, which will hopefully be at the end of September. The sales team will be visiting some of our customers in Eastern Europe during September and Simon Leiper & John Angus will be representing Shetland Catch at the World Food exhibition in Moscow, held between the 22nd Sept and 26th Sept. As usual, we will be co-exhibiting with our good friends and partners, Russian Fish Company, so please come along and visit us at stand number E429 in Pavilion 3. We’ll be on the stand on the 24th & 25th September.

The remaining mackerel quota for 2008 is broadly similar to last year so we anticipate a fairly busy autumn period. By all accounts stocks are empty and demand is high, so please contact us at sales@shetlandcatch.com if you have an interest to buy mackerel. We’ll be producing the standard sizes 200-400gms, 300-500gms, 400-600gms and 600gms+, all air blast frozen in our distinctive Viking cartons.