2009 was the best of the three and a half years of Pescafresca's relationship with the guild. (Photo: Pescafresca/FIS)
Tarragona Guild secures deal with Pescanova
(SPAIN, 2/12/2010)
The Tarragona Guild and the Pescafresca company, the fresh products unit of the Pescanova multinational, signed a contract with sardine and anchovy fishers. Under the agreement, the latter group will sell the company 85 per cent of their captures over the next three years.
The guild had signed an agreement with Pescafresca in 2008, but it was severed in August of last year to try to secure more advantageous economic conditions. It was later deferred until December 2009.
The three-year contract now on the table, following arduous negotiations, satisfies the president of the Trawler Shipowners Association of Tarragona, Esteve Ortiz.
The new agreement was sealed just before the biological prohibition finalised and the vessels began to work.
“We guarantee the sale and we will also collect payment every week, which is no small thing in times like these,” Ortiz explained.
Meanwhile, the fishers noted that thanks to the agreement with Pescafresca, they fetched better prices in 2009 than other ports of Spain.
For Robert Rodriguez, director general of Pescafresca, last year “was the best of the three and a half that mark the relationship between the company and the guild.”
“It was a very chaotic year overall because of the crisis, and the prices of all the products dropped, like hake, which fell 30 per cent, but we were able to maintain the price as much of the European anchovy as of the sardine,” Rodriguez maintained.
“We moved more than two million kilos for the Tarragona Guild, which meant invoicing for the guild that reached EUR 4 million, that is, an average price of more than EUR 2 per kilo, which is a great average price,” he added.
In Tarragona there are 10 vessels that target purse seiner fishing and each one has an average of about 11 crewmembers, among them, patrons, sailors and other personnel, meaning that at least 110 people will have their sale guaranteed, Diario de Terragona reports.
The commercial value is fixed daily by the company depending on the demand of the market and other factors, like climate.
The director-general of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, Marti Sans, contends that this agreement will provide tranquillity in offering a guaranteed purchase to a sector marked by an uncertainty “that begins before going out to sea, when it is not known if there will be fish or not.”
Similarly, following the signing of this contract, the declaration of all the fish and the quality is assured, as the fishers of the region do not fish major volumes.
“In Tarragona a magnificent product is fished; that also has prestige,” Sans stressed.
By Analia Murias
[email protected]
www.seafood.media
Information of the company:
Address:
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Avda. de Orillamar 71, 1º - Puerto Pesquero (Darsena 4), s/n
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City:
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Vigo
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State/ZIP:
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Pontevedra, Galicia (36202)
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Spain
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Phone:
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+34 986 434 209
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Fax:
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+34 986 224 758
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E-Mail:
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[email protected]
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