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This is bringing a different character to the fish trade in the United States. 
These firms have adequate access to capital—which was always a bottleneck to 
growth in the fish trade. They think in national terms in selling and in interna- 
tional terms, for the most part, in overall business. For the most part (and 
especially those in the food business) they are merchandizing oriented and not 
production oriented. They are accustomed to thinking and dealing in large terms 
ard in the impersonal basis of the family owned business which formerly domi- 
nated the United States fish trade. 
It has not been customary for a rather long time for large fish firms in the 
United States to be much involved in the ownership of fishing vessels, although 
practice differed in different sections of the trade. All sections of the trade, how- 
ever, practiced, on a mcre or less extensive basis, the giving of credit to fishermen 
for seasonal operations, for vessel acquisition, for new vessel construction, ete. 
With the changing character of the fish trade this practice is diminishing and is 
likely to pretty well vanish. Finance Committees of large corporations keep a close 
weather eye on returns of assets employed, or a related auditing statistic, and 
do not care to have capital tied up where it is not turning over fairly frequently 
and showing an appropriate earning rate. Fishing vessel capital does not turn over 
very rapidly and the pay out is likely to be rather longer than Finance Commit- 
tees or Bank Examiners like. This is becoming all the more the case as fishing 
vessels become larger, more sophisticated, and more costly to acquire and operate. 
Thus, instead of the consolidation of the fish trade into larger and stronger 
hands being a direct and immediate boon to the U.S. flag fishing industry the 
contrary is more likely to be the case. Up until recently the fish trade has had a 
certain paternalistic relationship to its fishermen-boat owners. in any event 
when the going got tough enough the boat owners could go directly to the top man 
in the firm he supplied with fish and state his case to a sympathetic person who 
knew his end of the business, and if he was a good fisherman he could expect to get 
as much relief from the person from whom all power in the firm fiowed as seemed 
reasonable and could be given. It also has not been unknown, in the tuna trade at 
least, for boat-owners to group together and help a firm that they fished for over a 
tight credit spot by loan, deferment of fish payment, or decrease in fish price by 
one means or another. This sympathetic give-and-take between processing firms 
and their fishermen suppliers has been a convenient shock absorber in this 
volatile and uncertain business. It is rapidly disappearing. 
Many of the large firms now coming into controlling position in the fish trade 
have extensive holdings in other countries, or extensive holdings outside the fish 
trade in this country. They will buy raw material to their quality standards from 
wherever in the world it is in the steady supply they require at the cheapest price, 
and sentimentality or paternalistic feeling will have little to do with it. Those 
who deal otherwise in the same market with them will do likewise or they will 
fall by the wayside. 
There is much talk among national planners, not much acquainted with the 
fish trade, that the incursions of these firms into the U.S. fish trade will lead to an 
integration of the fish business from the ocean to the consumer’s plate with much 
emphais on system analyses, etc. There is nothing in recent history to indicate 
such a trend, and much to indicate a contrary trend toward further divorcement 
of fishing vessel ownership and operation from processing and merchandizing of 
fishery products. The only exception apparent to this is a trend to integration, 
automating, and systems planning in the fish meal industry of the Gulf of Mexico. 
Another tendency noted in this changing picture is the trend to emphasis on 
products having national distribution capable of being obtained in large volume 
with broad customer acceptance, with resource base some place in the world 
adequate to permit substantial market growth, and products having stability of 
supply. Indicated is a further trend to such products as tuna, shrimp, fish blocks. 
and its products, and fish meal. Should fish protein concentrate ever develop as a 
commercial product it would fit in this category. 
Another factor of major importance is that these iarge firms by and large are 
opposed to trade controls, tariffs, ete., because of the international nature of their 
total business. Thus domestic fishermen can anticipate more opposition from fish 
processors to barriers to the flow of fish products in international commerce than, 
even, has been the case in the past twenty years. 
Another trend would appear to be the impracticability for fishermen’s coopera- 
tives to break into these major fish commodity fields in a consequential manner 
because of the strength of brand in the market, and capital back-up in the business. 
Lastly, a continuation is anticipated in the already existing trend toward 
weaker national and regional trade organizations in the fish trade. Very large 
