Fish trade rejects charge of making excessive profits: The fall in dockside prices has not been reflected in cheaper sales over the counter. Oliver Gillie reports

FISHMONGERS and fish friers yesterday defended their prices after fishermen accused the trade of making unreasonable profits from a glut of fish at the quayside.

Cheap imports of Norwegian and Russian fish were the cause of the glut, British fishermen said. However, much of the fish landed in the past three or four weeks have been small haddock not sought by merchants because filleting is labour intensive and gives a higher proportion of waste.

Fish friers are the country's largest buyers of fresh wet fish, using each year about 60,000 tons of white fish, mostly cod and haddock, sold through some 8,000 fish and chip shops. They have tight margins, selling a small fillet and chips for as little as pounds 1.

Arthur Parrington, general secretary of the National Federation of Fish Friers, said: 'Fish and chip shops in the Midlands sell a large fillet weighing eight ounces before frying, whereas in the North-west they have always preferred a smaller four-ounce portion. The larger fillets cost more for an equivalent weight. To get the larger fish you have to pay pounds 30 or more a stone and all our people are paying pounds 20 or more for fish.'

Over the last few weeks small haddock were selling for pounds 15 a stone, or less, but they were too small for most friers. Taking average figures, a frier might pay 70p for an 8oz (227 gram) fillet which is sold after frying with batter for pounds 1.60 to pounds 2.

'Prices of larger fish have just begun to come down - from pounds 36 to pounds 28 in one case this week,' Mr Parrington said. 'Our members generally aim at a gross profit of 45 to 50 per cent. But they try to keep prices level because customers don't like price changes.'

Fishmongers, who have around 1,800 shops in Britain, say their prices are coming down, although less than the decrease in price at the dockside. But cod and haddock, which have seen the large fall in prices, provide only about 15 per cent of sales in their shops.

Peter Carney, secretary of the National Federation of Fishmongers, said: 'I believe the fall in prices will eventually be handed on. No one in business can ignore the market. But demand for fish . . . does not seem to go up when prices fall, but it decreases when prices go up. And if you let prices fall it is not so easy to put them up again without losing trade.' So most fish shops allow fluctuations in price of around 5 per cent over a year while the dockside price varies by around 30 per cent.

Merchants, too, deny that they are making any unusual profits. Sandy Law, chairman of the Fish Curers and Merchants Association in Aberdeen, said: 'The fishermen are expecting too much. We are one month into cheap fish and they are moaning. The merchants are moaning too because they are having to cut their profit margins to get a sale.'

The price fall of around 30 to 40 per cent in the past month has followed a steady rise of around 2 per cent most of last year, followed by 10 per cent rises first in December, when EC fish quotas had run out, and then in January when the weather was exceptionally bad. The price came down after the weather changed, allowing boats to go out in strength to catch their first quotas of the year.

'Four weeks is not sufficient time for merchants to get back markets which have declined,' Mr Law said. 'Fish is an international market. It is not Russian and Norwegian landings which have lowered prices - they have been small. Prices of frozen fish are low because there are large quantities of Alaskan pollack and South American hake which find their way into most of the ready fish meals that are sold in supermarkets.'

Russian ships have landed only 2,000 tons of frozen fish and 400 tons of wet fish this year, when total annual consumption of frozen fish is 360,000 tons and of wet fish 115,000 tons. The price of frozen fish has remained more or less the same in sterling over the past year, going down slightly in terms of German marks or ecus.

Geoffrey Molloy, chairman of the Frozen Food Producers' Association, said: 'Prices have gone down recently because British boats have been making large landings of cod from north Norway and the Barents Sea and we no longer have the capacity to process it.

'We have a small quota for fishing in the Barents Sea which must be just about used up now. Our fishermen would have got better prices if they had brought it in over a longer period. It's a matter of the wrong fish in the wrong place at the wrong time.'