First fish landed at new Scalloway fishmarket

Skipper Victor Laurenson oversees the off-loading of boxes from the hold of the Radiant Star LK-71 to the quayside at Scalloway fishmarket. Photo: SIC

Whitefish was landed at the new Scalloway fishmarket for the first time last night.

Trawler Radiant Star – LK71 landed 251 boxes of whitefish caught off the west of Shetland earlier on Monday, including including whiting, cod, haddock and hake.

The boxes were stored overnight in the £5.6 million chilled fishmarket and sold early this morning at the electronic Shetland seafood auction.

The new fishmarket offers around double the floor area of the previous building, according to the SIC, and has been built on the same site as the previous building, parts of which were around 40 years old.

Construction of the fishmarket, which is operated by Shetland Seafood Auctions and the LHD, was substantially completed at the end of 2019 and handed over in early 2020.

Chairwoman of the harbour board Andrea Manson said: “I’m very pleased that the first whitefish boxes landed at the new Scalloway Fishmarket are from a local boat, and I’d like to congratulate skipper Victor Laurenson and the crew of the Radiant Star for being the ones to achieve this landmark.

“The newly rebuilt and expanded fishmarket is a significant asset to the local whitefish industry and I hope we’ll see many more boxes landed here for many years to come.”

Scalloway Harbour won Fishing Port of the Year at the 2020 Fishing News awards in June, beating off competition from Brixham, Fraserburgh, Peterhead and Scrabster.