GM who led transition at Portland Fish Exchange to step down

File photo / Tim Greenway Portland Fish Exchange’s long-time general manager, Bert Jongerden, will step down at the end of the year.

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By Staff

The Portland Fish Exchange will lose a familiar face when its longtime general manager, Bert Jongerden, retires at the end of the year.

The city-owned seafood auction house opened its doors back in 1986 as the nation’s first all-display fresh fish and seafood auction, according to a news release.

The exchange helped smooth dealings between fishermen and seafood buyers, organizing what had been a haphazard marketplace in which fishermen would dock their boats and scramble to negotiate sales with individual buyers before the perishable fish stocks went bad.

The exchange transformed Maine’s seafood marketplace by placing the daily harvest of freshly caught cod, haddock, flounder and other traditional New England groundfish in a refrigerated warehouse for inspection by wholesale buyers. All of the fish were sold at daily noontime auctions and shipped out by truck in the afternoon. Payments to the fishermen were guaranteed by the exchange.

From 1989 to 1996, the exchange opened at 4 a.m. and sometimes ran until midnight, selling 30 million pounds of fish and employing close to 65 people. From 1990 to the early 2000s, Portland was the No. 1 port on the East Coast for groundfish.

As the country's first all-display fresh auction, Portland quickly captured most of Maine's groundfish landings as well as some from southern New England. Instead of having to buy a boatload of fish sight unseen, buyers can see each day's catch and bid on the best-quality fish. Sellers, particularly those who deliver quality fish, benefit by receiving higher prices in the auction.

By 1994, however, yearly groundfish landings and the number of vessels had fallen sharply from peak levels of the prior decade. Dozens of vessels and seafood processors went out of business. Others moved to Massachusetts ports. The Portland Fish Exchange remained a linchpin to the future of the state's groundfish industry, but it had to innovate and tighten its belt to stay in business during a prolonged period of decreased groundfish landings.

Jongerden was born in Eemnes, Netherlands, and moved to Portland with his parents in 1960. He began his seafood career in sales and production in the 1980s, working on Hobson’s Wharf in Portland.

When he was hired as the exchange’s general manager in 2007, he oversaw the transition, in 2008, to an internet-based platform, replacing the traditional outcry auction it had used from the beginning. To find new sources of income for the exchange, surplus space in its 30,000-square-foot building on Commercial Street was leased to other seafood tenants. Additional cash was raised by warehousing lobster bait and handling of seafood not suitable for auction.

The exchange’s board of directors has begun a search for a new leader, who will be tasked to continue bringing new opportunities to benefit commercial fishermen and Maine’s emerging aquaculture industry.

“All of us will miss Bert,” the board’s president, Tom Valleau, said in the release. “He has been a wonderful friend and a hard-working manager.”