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Up-to-date Methods in Fish Transport an Urgent Need

23rd January 1948
Page 50
Page 50, 23rd January 1948 — Up-to-date Methods in Fish Transport an Urgent Need
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Mobile Refrigerators Required to Ensure Delivery of Fish in Fresh Condition from Ports to the Housewife

THE combination of an aluminium container and a wood crate, plus a cleverly designed spring fastening, constitute an advance in fish-box construction that is long overdue. However, time will show whether the spring catch is " pilfer-proof " and to what extent the wood crate can stand up to the indifferent handling to which it.

is subjected. Let us hope that the box will be the success that it deserves to be and that it will get fairer treatment than the old wood box has had in the past. .

Except for the powerful influence of the railways, the .transport of fish by road would have developed logically. In the course of a " crisis call" to the fishing industry at Grimsby recently, Mr. Tom Williams, Minister of Agriculture, mentioned that landings in 1946 amounted to 3,100,000 cwt. If this weight were spread over 500 days, and if all of it had to be carried inland from the point of discharge, it would mean that 450 tons per working daywould have to be handled, providing one-way freight for_ .45 10-ton vehicles.

Mobile Refrigerators

The articulated six-wheeler would probably be the ideal vehicle for this work. The body would be constructed so that refrigerating plant, driven, if need be, by the engine of the tractive unit, would keep the fish at the correct temperature. While loading, or awaiting loading, the containers would be kept at the correct temperature by driving the refrigerating plant off the local power supply.

The interior of the "fish hold." would be sub-divided So that fish could be withdrawn at any time without • reducing the temperature of other compartments, and the fish itself would be carried in aluminium trays of the kind employed in the new-type fish box.

Obviously, no wood crates would be needed. The shelving could be so designed that the fish containers dropped into recesses, could not shift about en route. . -.

Deliveries might be made in several ways, according to the size of the consignment. It is obvious that all A40 types of ..fish would not be carried in any one lorry, neither -would it be efficient to make small-quantity deliveries, as that would necessitate too many stops, each causing "loss of cold" in the compartment. . .

The proper method of dealing with the smaller • quantities would be to deliver them into a cold store from which the retailers could draw.

Delivery of fish into a cold store, whence the retailer can draw supplies at will, presents marked advantages. Consider the time wasted by a retailer in the country, travelling in his van to the station, to find that either the train is late or the consignment of fish has missed its connection.

At the present 'time; of course, with a scarcity of meat and lack of variety. of food, the housewife in the country districts is glad, and willing to wait indefinitely for the fish van, but it would be quite another matter if other food were plentiful. It would beunfortunate for a fishmonger, having to take -his goods around late, due to causes completely outside his control, found that :his prospective customers had bought. something else.

Reverting to the fish box, if 'it wire possible to get fish :regularly -trans-. ported by road, instead of by rail, it is 'clear, in the first place, that wood crates would not be needed. This would result in a large saving of timber. Again, if as would Seem not unlikely, vehicles were owned and controlled by the trade, the risk of loss or damage to the containers woUld, be materially reduced, and the 'returning of empty containers would be a matter of extreme simplicity, 'as these: would behanded over to the lorrymen and taken

back on the return journey. .

Each lorry would have a full set of containers, and for each container. left with a retailer an empty container would be picked up. As each lorry had a full set of containers, it could, after completing its trip, travel, not necessarily to the fishing port whence it started, but to any fishing part where similai types of vehicle were working. By so doing, idle time would be reduced.

This brings us to another feature of the organization—the manning of the vehicles. It is obvious that much would depend on the drivers and, that being so, it is quite conceivable that. they would tend to be like the managers of fish shops rather than just drivars. If treated on these lines, and given scope for initiative, they would load consignments of fish and 'find an increasing proportion of the customers themselves.

The completion of the chain is found in the new development of what is known as "quick freezing." If this becomes general practice, the handling of fish in country districts would follow the lines on which far-seeing ice-cream manufacturers distribute their product .in the smallest villages.

Ice Cream and Fish

The difference between the distribution of. a ton. or two of ice cream

among a number of shops in lots of a hundredweight or so, and the .distri-= butlers of 10 tons of fish among a series of cold stores in lots of a ton or two, is one of -degree; the fundamental

principles are the same. • It is said that the cormorants, which inhabit the Bass Rock, in Scotland, eat more fish in a year than the annual catch of the Scots fishing fleet. it is not unlikely that the fish trade, in the course of a year, consigns more ash to the meal and manure factories because of its being unfit for human consumption, than it delivers to the housewife.

Fish is condemned for only one reason; and that is defective storage conditions in the fishing boat, in course of transport, 'or in the retailer's shop. With such it large proportion of the catch unfit for human consumption, we. must catch double the quantity .to. satisfy the public demand, and that is One of the reasons for the depletion of fish stocks. The remedy is to be found in improved transport conditions for a

valuable commodity. K.W.W.

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