The Fish Case Manufacturing in Sanriku

Abstract

The manufacturing of wooden fish cases for the shipping of marine-products is conditioned by the supply of materials and processed fish. However, in ports of fishing bases, manufacturing of fish cases is not so remarkable as the ship building and fish processing industry.The author investigated the character of the fish case manufacturing in the following four fishing ports in Tohoku; Hachinohe, Kesennuma, Ishinomaki and Shiogama.1) Wooden cases are used for more than paper, metal and chemical plastic cases, because the wood is more accessible than other kinds.2) The fish case manufacture factories are located near the markets of marineproducts or near the landing places of fish.There are two types in the distribution of factories.One is a type in which the factories are concentrated around the fish markets such as in Hachinohe, Kesennuma and Ishinomaki. In those fishing ports, most of the fishes landed are so-called fish or lower classes-mackerel and cuttle fish. Fish case factories in those fishing ports moved accompanied with the moves of the fish markets. In the other type, factories are dispersed in fishing ports and there are no relation between fish case factories and fish markets. Such distribution is seen in Shiogama as well as in Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, which has a conspicuous position in the ranking of fishing ports in Japan. Main landing fishes are so-called high class fish like tuna.3) Average number of employees of the factories is 3-5, and most of them are women as the result of labour shortage and use of machines.4) Wood as raw material is obtained from areas within 80km from the factories through contacts with timber merchants.