Fishing: German fishermen bring more ashore – around 157,000 tons

After two years of declining quantities, German fisheries brought more fish ashore again in 2023. It recorded a landing weight of 156,924 tonnes, around four percent more than in the previous year, according to the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) in Bonn. The reason for the increase in fish quantities is therefore mainly higher catch quotas for schooling fish such as blue whiting.

This meant that the fishermen earned revenues of just under 182 million euros, slightly less than in 2022, when it was around 187 million. “The reason why revenues for German fishermen have fallen despite increased landing quantities is due, among other things, to the composition of the landings of cheaper fish, such as sand eels and wood mackerel, and less frequently high-priced fish such as edible crabs, Norway lobster or turbot,” said BLE expert Lutz Wessendorf.

According to the authority, the fish most frequently brought ashore are blue whiting (24.2 percent), herring (22.4 percent) and mackerel (10.7 percent). In 2022, the weight landed by German fishermen had fallen by 8 percent, compared to 9.5 percent in the previous year.

According to the BLE, a good 20,300 tonnes of fish arrived in the fishing ports of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Bremen in 2023. The remaining 136,600 tonnes, worth 120.9 million euros, were brought to foreign ports, the largest quantities to the Netherlands and Denmark.

German private households again bought less fish in 2023, but spent more money on it. This is according to figures from the Fish Information Center. In total, consumers bought 418,240 tons of fish and seafood last year. That was around 4.2 percent less than in 2022. According to the information, they spent almost 5.1 billion euros on it – almost 3.7 percent more than the year before. Salmon has recently replaced Alaska pollock as the Germans’ favorite fish.