Old Quay fish auction goes online as inland restaurants join the bidding

For more than a century the fish auction at Old Quay has started with a handbell at half past five. The bell still rings, but most of the bids no longer come from the cold, wet hall. Since the market moved to an online system this summer, around 60 per cent of lots have been sold to buyers who were not in the building.

Each crate is weighed, graded and photographed as it comes off the boats, then listed with the vessel's name, the fishing ground and the time it was landed. Bidding runs as a falling-price auction, as it did on the floor, with the price dropping every few seconds until someone accepts. Registered buyers have risen from 38 to 112, and the auction now reaches restaurants and fishmongers up to two hours inland.

Kerrie Maddox, who runs a seafood restaurant in Bramley Cross, said she had never bought at Old Quay before because the early start and the drive made it impossible. She now buys three or four times a week from the kitchen before service planning begins, with orders collected by a shared refrigerated van.

Steadier prices on the quayside

For fishers, the main change has been fewer bad days. With a larger pool of bidders, prices for common species such as hake, pollack and mackerel have swung less sharply from one morning to the next. The harbour authority's own figures show the average daily range in the price of hake has narrowed by about a fifth.

A quiet morning used to mean you practically gave the catch away. Now there is always somebody bidding.

The shift has also changed what gets landed. With buyers inland willing to pay for less familiar species, skippers say there is now a market for gurnard, dab and other fish that were once thrown back or sold for bait. Restaurants in Larchfield and Ostbridge have started listing the boat that caught the fish on their menus, using the details published with each lot on the auction screen.

Alun Pascoe, who skippers a 12-metre trawler out of Old Quay and has fished from the harbour for 27 years, said quiet mornings no longer meant giving the catch away. Some older traders are less enthusiastic. They say the hall has lost its atmosphere and that buyers who cannot touch the fish rely too heavily on photographs. The market's manager, Grainne Holt, said inspection was still open to anyone in person and that the grading rules had been tightened. A small fee of 1.5 per cent on online sales pays for the system and for two extra staff.