This morning I visited Shetland Catch, pelagic fish factory in Lerwick, the largest of its kind in Europe, they are sponsoring the sculpture project. At the moment it is mackerel season and a busy time with the factory in full operation. The Zephyr trawler was docked and the fish were being pumped directly from the boat and into the factory. It is difficult to get a gauge on the sheer volume of fish that come through in one day, hundreds of tonnes, walking through you start to get a sense of the amounts, it is a constant conveyor belt of fish being moved around the factory, on a complex system and network of belts, channels, pipes and forklifts zooming around all to get the fish packed, stacked, quickly and out. At Shetland Catch they are cleaned, sorted into sizes and frozen ready to be exported around the world.
It is a place of multiples, stacked packs, blocks of flat boxes, walls of frozen blocks of 20kg packs of mackerel.
And refrigerated rooms at -24!
