Fish Market of the Future

Stan has an unusual local visit lined up: the fish auction at Motril. It’s just a couple of miles and located, unsurprisingly, at the fish dock. We see a traditional fishing boat on blocks presumably for maintenance. It makes a fine sight in the evening sun.

But these aren't the usual boats anymore; it's now the world of the deep sea trawler, and these are the boats tied up at the quay unloading their catches for the auction.

Close up, these boats look as if they mean business with those metal plates hanging off the back. You wouldn’t want to tangle with the trawlerman in the yellow leggings either.

It’s not all mechanised though, and we surprised this chap mending nets in the traditional way. 

Now we come to the futuristic bit. The fish come off the boats, all sorted into different types, in these blue boxes.

Nothing unusual about that, but then each box gets put on a slowly moving conveyor belt that passes in front of rows of seats where the buyers sit. Notice that there are several TV screens facing the buyers.

The conveyor belt stops at each blue box under a downward pointing camera so a picture of the fish in that box is shown on the TV screen. The bidding for that box now starts, in complete silence! This is how it works.

You can perhaps see that each buyer is holding something: it’s an electronic pad that he presses to make a bid. The highest bidder’s device also identifies the bidder, and a ticket is printed out that falls into the box so the purchaser can find what he’s bought at the end of the auction. The conveyor belt then moves on to the next box.

Stan’s comment, on looking at the TV screen images of the various fish types going past, was, “It’s very sad, this is their last family photograph!” 

So it’s goodbye from the fish auction, and from the big fella in a box all to himself.