13.
Kilde:
Fiskeri-Beretning,
Kbh. , div. årgange (1945-1949).
14.
S. Byskov, ’Esbjergfiskerne og missionen’ i
Sjæk'len
2011, p. 39-56.
15.
P. Holm m.fl., op. cit., p. 23-24.
16.
P. Holm m.fl., op. cit. p. 26-27.
17.
P. Holm m.fl., op. cit., p. 32.
18.
Fiskeri
-
Beretning
1950, Kbh. 1951;
Vestjysk Fiskeriti-
dende
10/5, 10/6 og 10/9 1950
.
19.
Vestjysk Fiskeritidende
10/5 1950.
20.
Vestjysk Fiskeritidende
24/7 1950.
21.
P. Holm m.fl., op. cit., p. 32.
22.
P. Holm m.fl., op. cit., p. 33.
Summary
Industrial fishing developed strongly in Esbjerg in the
1950s, but the foundation for the growth of this new kind of
fishing was laid in the years before then. Esbjerg fishermen
developed a thorough knowledge of the North Sea as fish-
ing grounds in the interwar years, and together with north
Jutland fishermen, they had developed a market for fresh
fish in Great Britain. Access to the North Sea was limited
during World War II, but the fishermen had made very good
earnings on Danish seine fishing, and these earnings were
largely invested in new and bigger vessels which together
represented an overcapacity relative to plaice fishing when
the war was over and the British market reopened. It was
therefore vital for the fishermen to explore and find new
options if the heavily enlarged fishing fleet was to survive
financially. Many types of fishing were tested, including
herring fishing in the northern parts of the North Sea and
distant water fishing in the North Atlantic, but the majority
of the North Sea fishing vessels survived thanks to an agree-
ment from 1945-1949 with Great Britain on fishing licences
and price regulation for fish landed in British ports. This
agreement expired in 1950, and the fishermen’s competitive
environment consequently deteriorated dramatically. Ha-
ving to look for alternative ways of earning their livings,
they went as far as the Barents Sea to find new resources.
A co-operative herring oil factory had been established
in Esbjerg in 1948 in an attempt to create an alternative to
the edible herring market. Esbjerg fishermen had been in-
volved in herring fishery since 1945, but without any nota-
ble success as they had failed to establish an efficient sales
organisation. The co-operative experienced major oper-
ating problems at first, but they were almost beleaguered
by would-be suppliers as large stocks of herring had been
found at Bløden close to Esbjerg at the same time as the
plaice crisis began. Thanks to a chartered vessel, the
Clu-
pea
, which was a floating herring oil factory, the co-opera-
tive succeeded in processing the heavily increased landings
of herring into herring meal and oil in the period to and
including 1953, when the co-operative had succeeded in de-
veloping its own production capacity and was ready to act
as purchasing organisation for what had now become Es-
bjerg’s industrial fishing fleet. The price of plaice rose again
over the following years to its wartime level, and with the
aid of the
Clupea
, Esbjerg’s fish meal factories had helped
the fishing industry through some difficult years, where the
number of vessels had been reduced by 20%, but where the
remaining fleet emerged from the crisis in a stronger posi-
tion than they had been in before.
Seen in hindsight, the emergence of a dedicated indus-
trial fishing industry in Esbjerg was due to a high degree to
a series of simultaneous and interlinked factors. The com-
bination of overcapacity in the Esbjerg fleet, lack of suc-
cess in the edible herring sector, the crisis in plaice fishing,
and not least the presence of a floating Norwegian herring
oil factory during the years when the Esbjerg fishermen
threw themselves into trash fishing meant that it is fair to
say that from the second half of the 1950s, a new fishing
sector had been established in Esbjerg. Its focus was on
industrial fishing and the production of fish meal and oil,
and it moved forward in tandem with the revitalised fishing
with Danish seine for edible fish such as plaice, cod and
haddock. Industrial fishing had found its feet for good, and
although this had not been part of the plan with the estab-
lishment of the co-operative herring oil factory, the latter
opened the door to an entirely new fishing industry which
was to set its strong mark on the city and the harbour in the
decades which followed.
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