Fixing the Fish

Boston's mammoth, reeking fish pier, which juts 1,200 ft. into South Bay, has long been the hub of New England's fishing industry, once the most prosperous branch of U.S. commercial fishing. In recent years the pier has also become a symbol of the industry's steady decline. Since World War II, Boston's trawler fleet has dropped from 140 to 79, its once huge force of fishermen to 2,000, its share of the vital groundfish market (e.g., flounder, haddock, cod), which was once 90%, to 45%. Yet last week the Boston fish pier was sprucing up as if it had not a worry in the world. Fresh coats of paint covered the weather-beaten buildings, ramshackle structures were being razed, new signs warned filthy-booted fishermen: PLEASE KEEP YOUR FEET ON THE FLOOR. Among the pier's old salts the word was: "The boys have taken over."

"The boys" are the Fulham brothers--Tom, 41, Jack, 40, and Gerard, 36--who have parlayed a little capital and a lot of imagination into a $12 million packing and freezing concern while other companies were going broke or pulling out of Boston.

Just back from World War II, the Fulhams took over their father's declining fish business, which sold its catch in a wildly fluctuating seasonal market. The brothers decided that the way to stabilize was to process and market their fish themselves. They started in 1946 with a 1-lb. frozen package, persuaded A. & P., Safeway and other chains to retail their "4 Fishermen" products, despite their tongue-twisting and somewhat exaggerated slogan, "Frozen Fish Are Fresher Than Fresh Fish." In 1953 they were among the first to produce and market the highly popular fish sticks. Today they lease their own fishing fleet, have packing plants in Maine, Nova Scotia and California.

In 1955, after the worst year in the history of Boston's fishing industry, the Fulhams decided that the antiquated fish pier, and its way of doing business, would have to be modernized if the Boston fishing industry was to survive. They quietly began buying stock in the pier, and, with two-thirds of the-stock in their hands, became landlords to Boston's fishing fleet, and launched a long-term improvement program.

Whither Mackerel? The Fulhams believe that the New England fishing industry can solve many of its own problems--if only it will. New England fishermen, like others on both the East and West Coasts, have been hard hit by heavy foreign imports (which amounted to 35% of the U.S. consumption in 1956), consumer apathy to fish (per capita consumption:11 lbs., v. 160 Ibs. for meat), and the high cost of operating, repairing and replacing boats. But many of the industry's troubles are the result of antiquated ideas and unwise practices. Says Vice President Jack Fulham: "Just so long as we didn't do things the way they'd been done before, we seemed to succeed. People in the fish business just seem to sit back and wonder whether the mackerel will ever come back."*

Boston's fishing fleet has steadily resisted change. Fish are still scooped from the trawlers with pitchforks that damage much of the catch, trundled off in ancient, scale-covered wooden carts, dumped into insanitary oak barrels. The Fulhams plan to install modern handling equipment, are also constructing the pier's first rendering plant to convert trash fish into meal for animal food and fertilizer, thus give the fleet a profitable incentive to go after porgies and other cheap fish when good fish are scarce.

Better Days Ahead? But the industry's biggest trouble is that the multitude of small fishermen have no orderly or systematic means of getting their fish to market, thus are victims of fluctuating supply and demand.

The Fulhams hope that some of the peaks and valleys of supply and demand will be flattened by "freezing in the round"--a method devised by the Fish and Wildlife Service to enable trawlers to gut and freeze fish at sea, stay out while the fishing is good, thus build up inventories that will tide them over slack periods (the Fulhams' contribution: a method of part-thawing, preparing and refreezing the fish, which they say preserves flavor). They have offered Boston's fishermen substantial loans to modernize the fleet, and plan to revive the Boston whiting fishery, which suffered from seasonal surpluses, by promoting frozen packages of the cheap fish throughout the year. Last week they were investigating yet another solution to the problem of supply and demand: a commodities market in sea products, to help prevent dumping during periods of glut and gouging during scarce periods.

*Scientists have no idea, are baffled by the disappearance of the huge schools that periodically visited the New England coast. Some think that environmental changes have affected their ability to reproduce there.

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