Peterhead processors hire 200 as mackerel landings hit 15-year high

Fish processors in Peterhead have taken on more than 200 extra workers in a month after the port recorded its largest autumn mackerel landings in 15 years, with 31,000 tonnes brought ashore in September alone.

Peterhead Port Authority said the value of fish landed in the first nine months of the year had reached £214m, up 23% on 2025, driven by a strong mackerel run off Shetland and a larger quota agreed with Norway and the Faroes in the spring. The port’s fish market handled 420 pelagic landings in September against a 10-year September average of 290.

The surge has left the town’s seven processing plants scrambling for staff. North Haven Seafoods, which fillets and freezes mackerel for export to Japan and west Africa, has hired 85 people since the start of September and is running three shifts. “We have been putting adverts in the window of every shop in Buchan,” said its managing director, Graeme Strachan. “We are paying £14.20 an hour to start, with a bus from Fraserburgh and Ellon. Even so, we are turning away boats because we cannot process fast enough.”

Cold storage is the other constraint. The port has about 60,000 tonnes of frozen capacity and Strachan said it had been “full to the doors” since mid-September, with lorries queuing to take product south to Grangemouth and Immingham. The port authority has asked Aberdeenshire council to fast-track planning consent for a 15,000-tonne cold store on the Dales industrial estate, which could be operating by next autumn.

The Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association said prices had held up despite the volume. Mackerel was fetching an average of £1,420 a tonne at auction last week, a modest fall from £1,510 in August. Skippers warn, however, that the quota agreement is for one year only and that the Faroese have signalled they want a bigger share in 2027.

Alison Buchan, the harbour master, said the port had not seen such a run of weather and fish since 2011. “The boats are coming in full after 36 hours at sea, which is unheard of,” she said. “We have had three vessels waiting at the breakwater for a berth on a Tuesday morning. That is a good problem, but it is still a problem.”

The hiring spree has had a visible effect in the town, where the unemployment rate has been stubbornly above the Scottish average since the oil downturn of 2015. Peterhead’s jobcentre reported 160 fewer claimants in September than in August. Councillor Karen Milne, who represents the town, said the boom showed “what this coast can still do when the fish are there and the quota is sensible”, but urged processors to make the new jobs permanent rather than seasonal.

The mackerel season normally runs until the end of November. Processors expect to keep the extra staff until Christmas at least, with the herring and blue whiting seasons to follow.