Being one of the biggest European markets for fish processing and consumption Germany is nevertheless quite small in catching fish.
In the fifties and sixties of the last century hundreds of German trawlers could be seen harvesting the seas all over the world. In 1973 still 117 modern stern trawlers were based in East and West Germany. In 1998 only 16 were left.
This development might give us an idea of what is ahead for European fishing. For every community which relies heavily on fishing the side impacts of the decline of this industry are enormous.
Less fishing means less boats, less wharfs, decreased need for engines, spare parts, ropes, shackles, nets, ..... Or to summarize each job lost on the boats will have the effect of job opportunities lost on the land.
Is there a way out? Let us check how a traditional supplier of the fishing industry succesfully adapted to the new times.
Mechanische Netzfabrik Walter Kremmin GmbH & Co. K.-G. in Oldenburg (www.kremmin.net) used to be one of the smaller net factories of Germany in the 1950's employing about 90 workers.
Today it has a work force of 35 and is the only full scale net manufacturer left in Germany. Why did they survive? We ask the managing director Dr. Hannes Kremmin. "In the beginning of the early 1960's my grandfather experienced the first downturn in the Islandic fishing net business. It was his decision to withdraw from all volume markets and focus on unique products which afford highly skilled workers and give a high added value.
Still today we are following his direction. Furthermore we decided to build up a complete cycle production from the raw material to the finished product. This means we operate all necessary machines from twisting and braiding to netting looms and dyeing plus impregnation works.
Thus we have 100% quality control, minimum costs and maximum flexibility. Our strategy implies that we are not interested in trading other manufacturer's products.".
Wandering through the well kept buildings with a total of about 2,500sqm we could see the practical output of these ideas. Twisting machines processing the raw materials which are later processed to knotted nets for fishing, fish farming, sports, decoration, agriculture, ...
A very busy braiding operation producing lead and float lines for fishing as well as a very elaborated range of ropes for otyher sectors. But what puzzles most is seeing more than 75% of the workers doing manual work.
"To make your customers happy you have to offer perfectly customized products with an outstanding quality. Simply running machines and trying to sell these goods will lead to low quality markets doomed to be conquered by Asian factories."
Many small fish net riggers in various countries already buy complementary products from Mechanische Netzfabrik to sell them in their local markets. So they try to minimize their dependancy on the fishing industry.
It seems to be a long and hard way Mechanische Netzfabrik is going since decades. But we wonder whether there is alternative?
