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The saying goes …
... where there’s smoke there’s a fire!
Not so in the case of the Gansbaai Marine factory. This smoke is non-destructive and serves humanity. It may be that when the smoke steams up from the factory chimneys in the harbour some people have a problem with the smell … but the Gansbaai community on a whole, smile broadly and claim: ”The catch is good! All is well!”
Gansbaai Marine (Pty) Ltd was incorporated in March 1962. The fish-meal plant was built in 1961 for industrial fish purposes to produce fish-meal and fish-oil for agriculture and during 1978 a cannery was built because of the good pilchard catches in the Walker Bay area.
“Pelagic fishing is the lifeline for the Gansbaai community,” explains Neville Titus, a Director of Gansbaai Marine.
Direct employment at the factory numbers 431 employees plus 80 active fishermen that crew the local trawlers. The factory employs 92 permanent workers and 338 seasonally. Apart from about 20 workers who live in Stanford, the rest are from Gansbaai.
“Furthermore, 85% of the shareholding belongs to people in the Gansbaai community being local fishermen and the Gansbaai Marine Empowerment Trust for the employees,” says Neville.
Besides employee costs to the company (excluding payment for fishing effort) to the value of R31 397 837 in 2016, the processing factory currently generates income to the local municipality with regards to water, electricity and rates and taxes to the value of R3,5 – 4,7 million Rand annually.
Eight privately owned trawlers catch and offload small pelagic species … pilchard, anchovy, red eye and maasbanker to the factory.
The sardine is delivered on ice, headed, gutted and tailed before being cooked and canned and sold as Pilchards in Tomato Sauce or Pilchards in Chilli.
The heads, guts and tails of the pilchards join the anchovy trail and is cooked and processed to be sold as fish-meal to the agricultural sector in 50kg bags.
The source of energy at the factory that steams up the boilers is coal.
At 90⁰C the anchovy is cooked and sterilized to produce fish-meal and at 121⁰C the pilchards are cooked and sterilized for canning purposes.
The steam that is emitted contains small amounts of methyl mercaptan which is the cause of the strong fish smell when the factory is producing fish-meal.
Producing fish-meal is a registered process that requires a special permit and various other special permits are also required to be adhered to in the operational day to day life of the factory.
The factory process on average 36 000 tons of pelagic fish per annum, with the maximum of 50 319 tons in 2004. It produces on average 450 000 cartons of canned fish per year of 48 cans per carton.
Research is done annually with the Afrikana research vessel. Twice a year in June/July pilchard and anchovy are tested for spawner biomass and in November the mature fish are tested again.
Between UCT (University of Cape Town) and a scientific group of DAFF (Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestries) calculations are done to establish the size of the resource and quotas are then awarded accordingly. Of the sardine a maximum of 10% or sometimes less, is awarded to the industry since the lifespan of a pilchard is approximately seven years. Anchovy however, is an annual specie so in this case 450 000 tons can be allotted to the industry as a maximum quota.
The Department of Environmental Affairs also request annual testing on all emission points to establish the cleanliness of effluent gasses.
The water let out from the factory into the harbour is also monitored by the Department of Water Affairs on a regular basis.
“Due to the turbulence in the bay, the Gansbaai Marine outlet has the least impact of all the factories along our coast.
This fact is also proven by the amount of harders caught from the harbour walls since harders will not be found if the water is not clean and various tests are regularly done by 3rd parties on behalf of the Department of Water Affairs,” says Neville.
Next week we’ll give you a glimpse of what living on a trawler at sea is like.
Make sure you get the Gansbaai Courant on Thursday, 31 August 2017.
