‘Dutch New’ buddies actually come from Norway

Herring, once also the silver darling with us. A fish that can be caught colder, higher and more Northern. However great our herring catch once was, modern herring now comes from Scandinavia. However, it is still the Dutch who fully control the buddy market.

“For centuries, herring was also the most commonly caught fish with us, certainly in the Netherlands, but they have not been caught in our North Sea since 1977. No Belgian ship that still gets a herring in the nets, but perhaps surprisingly, no Dutch fishing boat that still fishes for herring. Everything now comes from Norway and Denmark,” it sounds.

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Half a million tons of North Sea herring are caught every year and that is huge. But not all herrings are buddies. Only those herrings that just haven’t formed a roe or gum just before pregnancy are so-called Hollandse Nieuwe.

Fresh buddies from us don’t exist

So all mates are caught now, in 5 weeks time and the entire market has to do with that for a year. And all processed, brined and frozen in Northern Europe. Fresh buddies from here, or from the Netherlands, literally don’t exist.

Large ships catch the pegs with nets of hundreds of meters. They are not lifted on board, but sucked up with gigantic water suckers. Buddies are therefore wild-caught, sustainable and strictly controlled, not farmed fish at all and healthy.

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Since today, the first buddies of the new 2022 harvest are also in the country. Every year, Ostend is among the first to honor and taste the herring delicacy with a large folk festival. The city once owed a lot to herring, but the arrival of the first real so-called Hollandse Nieuwe remains a top day of folklore.