So far this year, the sandeel season has been one of the best for years, with fishing strong enough to leave industrial trawlers queueing to land at Triple Nine’s Thyborøn factory.
Triple Nine’s director Peter Jensen said that the season has been fantastic and the 458,000 tonne quota is the largest quota the fleet has been allowed for the last ten years.
‘It’s not like it was in the old days when the capacity of the Esbjerg factory alone was equal to what all the fishmeal plants together can produce today,’ he said, commenting that with fishing taking place in Area 2, the fleet does not have far to go to land its catches and this presents the Thyborøn factory with some challenges.
Waiting times are never popular, Peter Jensen said, but with production working routinely to its production capacity of 3000 tonnes per day, waiting times are just under 48 hours and the boats can be back to sea in three to four days.
He commented that queueing to land is frustrating, he said, but the Triple Nine factory has handled 140,000 tonnes of sandeel in the first half of the season and he noted that the sandeel from Area 2 appears to have slightly better fat content.
