Fishmongers disappearing: the trade nobody wants
Fish prices have risen by up to 50%, yet there are no young fishmongers. Unsociable hours, low pay and the rise of pre-packaged fish explain why the trade is dying out.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Fishmongers disappearing: no one is taking over
Why does no young person want to become a fishmonger? The answer is a cocktail of inhuman hours, laughable pay and a market that has turned into an elite one. While fish prices soar – year-on-year increases of 30% to 50% for some species, and up to 45% more if you buy it pre-packaged – the counters are running out of professionals.
Hours that drive people away
Working in a fish shop is almost a sentence: split shifts stretching until 9 at night, entire weekends lost and a wage that rarely reaches €2,000. With that outlook, it is no surprise young people would rather do anything else. As they say in the trade, "nobody wants to work retail hours with weekends included for low pay". And if there are other options, they leave.
Fish becomes gourmet
The consequence is predictable: whole, quality fish is confined to a handful of premium neighbourhoods at gold prices, while everyone else makes do with supermarket trays – filleted sea bass, "glowing" salmon, frozen hake with anisakis. Households are small, three members at most, and on tighter budgets. The large piece no longer has a place in the average shopping basket.
A succession that never comes
Some point to a solution: fish shops that open only three hours a day or at weekends, selling to restaurateurs at much higher margins. But that does not solve the generational handover. The fishmonger's trade, like so many others in Spain's rural emptied areas that lack manual vocations, is in danger of extinction. And for now, nobody seems willing to inherit it. Ironies of the market: just when fish has never been so expensive, there are fewer and fewer hands to sell it.
Related discussions in the forum
Why does no young person want to become a fishmonger? The answer is a cocktail of inhuman hours, laughable pay and a market that has turned into an elite one. While fish prices soar – year-on-year increases of 30% to 50% for some species, and up to 45% more if you buy it pre-packaged – the counters are running out of professionals.
Hours that drive people away
Working in a fish shop is almost a sentence: split shifts stretching until 9 at night, entire weekends lost and a wage that rarely reaches €2,000. With that outlook, it is no surprise young people would rather do anything else. As they say in the trade, "nobody wants to work retail hours with weekends included for low pay". And if there are other options, they leave.
Fish becomes gourmet
The consequence is predictable: whole, quality fish is confined to a handful of premium neighbourhoods at gold prices, while everyone else makes do with supermarket trays – filleted sea bass, "glowing" salmon, frozen hake with anisakis. Households are small, three members at most, and on tighter budgets. The large piece no longer has a place in the average shopping basket.
A succession that never comes
Some point to a solution: fish shops that open only three hours a day or at weekends, selling to restaurateurs at much higher margins. But that does not solve the generational handover. The fishmonger's trade, like so many others in Spain's rural emptied areas that lack manual vocations, is in danger of extinction. And for now, nobody seems willing to inherit it. Ironies of the market: just when fish has never been so expensive, there are fewer and fewer hands to sell it.
Related discussions in the forum
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (23 replies).
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