THE SARDINE INDUSTRY

Southland Times, Issue 18623, 22 August 1919, Page 3

THE SARDINE INDUSTRY

POSSIBILITIES IN AUSTRALIA. Dr R. K. Murphy, lecturer-in-charge, Science Department, Sydney Technical College recently read an interesting paper on Canned Sardines, before a meeting of the Royal Society of New South Wales. In the course of this he said;—

In order to get a proper perspective of the sardine industry, it is necessary to state a few facts as to its value and size. The Commonwealth imports of preserved fish in tins for the year 1915-16 was 213,347 cwt., valued at £755,286! A large proportion of this, of course, is tinned salmon. During the 1917-18 year Now South Wales alone imported 9,340,0001b, valued at £458,914; and exported practically nothing! And this in spite of the fact that the Commonwealth pays a bounty of per lb—only about £IOO annually is claimed from Australia. FRANCE'S ANNUAL OUTPUT. The chief sardine centre is France, where there arc over 100 canning factories, employing some 15,000, which keeps 8000 small boats and 32,000 fishermen busy. The annual output is over 125,000 tons — the offal and waste being sold to fanners as manure. Other centres are Spain, Norway, Eastern United States and California, England, Chili, India, Japan, and to some extent New Zealand. The distribution of the sardines is very wide; it abounds off the coast of Australia, and has been observed in very large shoals off the coast of New South Wales. On the local market to-day I was only able to obtain Norwegian sardines at 9d per tin, Californian at 9d, and French at 2s! Such prices are rapidly getting beyond the reach of the public. Are we too lazy to go and get them outside the Heads? Properly speaking, the sardine belongs to the herring or “Clupeidae” family, of which there are some 200 species. The adopted name of the true French variety, which ranks highest, is “Sardinia pilchardia." The island of Sardinia being the supposed starting point of the fish as they migrate northward as far as the Baltic. METHOD OF PROCEDURE.

The industry is comparatively simple. The fish—s to 7 inches long—are lured in shoals, by salted roe bait, to the fine gill nets, chiefly during the summer months. As fast as the small boats bring in their cargo the fish arc to be headed, gutted, sorted to size, washed in salt water, dried on wire screens or nets in open air (sometimes in ovens) —then best grades are placed on gratings two rows deep and plunged into boiling olive oil and cooked. For cheaper grades peanut, cotton eeed, or sesame oils are used as a substitute for olive oil. The fish are then allowed to drip—packed into tins—covered with olive oil, and then hermetically sealed. Sometimes they are resterilised. The French law requires that the best grades be treated in olive oil only. Frequently small herring, also sprats in Germany and Holland, are put up as sardines. This is not proper scientific ethics, _ and should be prohibited by pure food laws. The solid matter of sardines has a high food value, as it contains about 57 per cent, proteins and 29 per cent. fats.

The fitness of tinned sardines for consumption after long standing appears to be covered by two considerations, firstly, the amount of tin dissolved from the interior of the cans—this is a matter of regulation and routine analysis. The greatest danger to the public is allowing food to remain in opened tins. In conclusion I would like to point out the possibilities of developing our own fishcanning industries, when sardines are going .begging at our doors. If New Zealand can produce Picton herring, can’t we tin sardines, even in spite of labour and transportation troubles?