Let’s talk fish! – a day out at Portugal’s largest cannery
Text: Chris Graeme Image: Jesper Andersen
There was something decidedly fishy going on in the small seaside town of Peniche which to most overseas visitors is associated with international surfing.
The trail was marked by a flock of seagulls hovering over a group of unassuming white buildings through the gates of which an articulated lorry would now and again emerge.
Other than this, and the obvious smell which was quite overpowering, there was little evidence from the outside that this was the largest fish canning factory in Portugal, indeed one of the largest in Europe.
At the invitation of the British-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce (BPCC) I am invited on a guided tour with a handful of its members to tour this factory which has been churning out tinned sardines and mackerel for decades.
We are met by Luís Jerónimo, the Human Resources Manager of Thai Union – European Seafood Investments who informs us that this factory, which employs 850 workers (mostly women) has been in existence since 1915.
In those days, the factory was (and still is) close to the port of Peniche. The husbands of the women who worked in the factory were fishermen who braved the elements and high seas to venture out, sometimes for days at a time, to comb the rich fishing ground off the coast.
When they returned with nets full, a siren would scream out and the women would file dutifully through the factory gates from their grace and favour cottages rented to them by the company adjacent to the enterprise.
“Generations of women would work here; grandmothers, daughters and their daughters” explains Luís who informs that the factory was – and still is – one of the main employers in the town and the fourth largest in the district of Leiria. Indeed it is the largest fish canning factory in the whole of Portugal.
Yet these days hardly any of this fish is sold directly in Portugal. Instead it is lorried out to this company’s three main markets – France, the United Kingdom and Italy.
And if you happen to remember going to the local corner store in the UK with your mother or grandmother as a kid to buy a tin of John West tinned tuna or sardines, then you might be surprised to learn that this is not a British brand but a Portuguese one from this very factory.
Thai Union – the largest fish canning company in the world
The company’s export value is €82.6 million per annum but it is no longer in Portuguese hands and hasn’t been since the 1980s.
It is part of the fish canning empire Thai Union which is the largest fish canning company in the world.
Once it belonged to the US Heinz Group which sold it on to a US investment company that got badly burnt by the Lehman Brothers scandal and collapse during the Great Financial Crisis.
Interestingly enough, Thai Union had tried to buy the company in 2006 but failed. When the crisis came and the investors were forced to divest, needless to say it picked up the cannery for almost a song.
With big ticket clients in its three main markets, including many large supermarket retailers such as Lidl, which reimports the sardines, mackerel and tuna back into Portugal to stock the shelves of its stores here (sounds crazy doesn’t it?), today the company is doing better than ever at a time when the canned fish sector is facing increasing competition.
So, we begin our tour, suitably attired in white overalls, white shoes and red hair nets not to mention blue surgical gloves – a getup that makes you feel that you are heading for the operating block rather than the factory floor.
There are two warehouses – one to store empty cans, plastic vats of sauces, and the vegetable ingredients added to the cans – the other, aptly called the Fishing Dock (Doca da Pesca) is where the magic happens.
It is a noisy realm filled with metallic conveyors, water-filled tanks, flaying stations (more about that in a moment), most of it made in Germany – where else?; but it is in the least automated parts of this greedy machine that processes many tens of tonnes of fish per day, that the magic happens,
We’re on the mackerel line manned by an army of 90 women from Portugal (generally the older ones, and younger immigrants from the Portuguese speaking countries and a few Eastern Europeans), all armed with knives and hard at work.
With this simple tool they dexterously flay the fish – removing the skin, taking out the entrails and picking the meat off the bone so expertly and with such lightening speed that I reckon the average time it took to “flay” these specimens was in seconds per fish.
And nothing goes to waste here. The bones, heads, tails, fins and entrails are discarded into vats that will be processed into farm animal feed and cat food – I wager you’ll never look at that tin of cat food the same way again after opening it for your feline friend – best not to think too much about it!
Oh, and for those well-heeled women perusing the cosmetics counters in El Corte inglés – that face cream product promising the elixir of eternal youth and beauty might want to skip the fact that promising experiments are employing the glutenous fish eyes in their recipes to come up with a product for a pretty penny.
We are told that the main fish processed at this canning factory are mackerel and sardines. The mackerel is referred here as ‘scomber scombrus’ which is variously known as Atlantic mackerel, Boston mackerel, Norwegian mackerel and Scottish mackerel depending where it is caught.
And you might be surprised that despite the fact that 1 million tonnes of the stuff is caught annually, it is not listed a an endangered species by the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUNC) despite its highly commercial status, and the global catch has remained sustainable.
Into the deep freeze
But although tuna is not the main raison d’ être of this factory, we did notice that there was an awful lot of it around – mostly stacked on pallets in a huge temperature controlled warehouse.
Now I used to live in Russia, but winter temperatures there have nothing on the chill factor in this cavernous space. Be unfortunate enough to get shut in here at -20c and you too will only be fit for cat food or canning and within a matter 20 minutes! Fear not, though, there is an alarm.
Once the fish has been slowly defrosted in vast tanks of warm bubble infused water of not more than 40ºc, it is rinsed in fresh water and is divided into fillets or steaks for slow cooking in long cylindrical ovens where it is steamed at 160ºc for four hours.
After cooking, the fish is placed on pans, loaded into ventilated chambers and slowly cooled to 40°С. This process allows removing excess water from the fish while keeping the density and firmness of the meat.
90 recipes
After the fish has been cooked, smoked or grilled (if necessary) it passes by a team of women standing to attention in front of a conveyor belt where they ingredient dose – this means adding the constituent ingredients that make up around 90 different recipes (tomato, Provence herbs, extra virgin olive oil, and mustard to name but a few) on nine production lines, filling 113 million tins a year with 17 different tin sizes!
Having said that, younger consumers find vacuum sealed plastic pouches more appealing, while the company also does a tasty line in fish and pasta salads which are placed in softer aluminum containers. I can attest that the salads are good – we each received one in a goodies bag on leaving that made it to my dinner tray that night.
According to the type of filling, the tinned fish is divided into: in own juice, in oil, tomato sauce, and broth. The largest production share accounts for the processed fish in tomato sauce (more than 30% of the production) and fish products in oil and own juice (natural) with up to 30% depending on the cannery.
Once the tins are filled, the atomisation takes over whereby the tins are sealed at a high temperature, washed and sterilised before heading off to the packing section where batches are shrink wrapped in plastic and placed in cardboard boxes ready to be dispatched to the rest of the continent.
It’s a fascinating journey, and so much more complex than I had imagined. But there is a sense of security for me now knowing just how much health and safety is involved. That fish is so well cooked, prepared and sterilised no bug could survive the process!
Last, a big shout out to Luís, João, Diogo and Tiago for taking the time out of their busy schedule to shepherd us around, and to BPCC CEO Chris Barton and Helena Fernandes (Events and Services) for arranging the day – a day to remember.
