Once upon a time, catching and packing sardines was the only industry on the Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia. Today in Croatia, sardines are less and less due to the heat. Only four factories survived, some went to Serbia. Because fish stinks to tourists
"Sardines in Adriatic is getting smaller" - that's what the Croatian media reported at the beginning of the year. Researchers found that the average size sardine in the last two decades, it decreased by three to four centimeters, that is, from about 15 to about 12 centimeters on average.
That news upset the public because these fish are very popular as food among people outside the coastal areas, but especially in Istria. Even special festivals are dedicated to them. However, humans are responsible for the decline: researchers have identified overfishing and climate change as the reasons, he reports Deutsche says.
After the past summer with record heat, during which the surface temperature of the Adriatic reached 30 degrees, the future of sardines in the Adriatic Sea is even more uncertain - and thus the survival of the local production of canned fish, one of the oldest industries along the Croatian coast.
For many, it would be a great loss, practical and symbolic - another industrial branch of Croatia would disappear. At the same time, since the 1990s, the Adriatic coastal regions have experienced strong deindustrialization, which has caused great dissatisfaction.
The end of another chapter is increasingly likely. The Adriatic Sea, a kind of maritime dead end, is heating up significantly faster than other areas of the Mediterranean.
A Croatian research institute determined that deep water has warmed four times more in the last decade than during the entire previous century.
This has numerous consequences for the natural habitat. For the sardine, which needs certain temperatures for reproduction, the conditions are becoming more and more unfavorable.
And without sardines, there are no canned sardines in oil. These cans are still advertised in Croatia with the slogan "Super food from the Adriatic". The producer "Mirna" from picturesque Rovinj is proud to process sardines caught in the Adriatic, because the local "little blue fish", as they call it in Croatia, is particularly tasty. At least that's what the ad says.
In Croatia, they are also proud of their long tradition: the production of canned fish was one of the first industries that provided income to the inhabitants of the once poor coastal areas along Istria and Dalmatia; more precisely, to women, who have always made up the majority of employees in these factories. There are almost no men on the production lines โ but that's why there are men in the management structures.
The roots of the industry go back to the late 19th century, when Habsburg and French companies began industrially processing the Adriatic's wealth of sardines.
The first fish canning factory in present-day Croatia was opened in 1882 in Rovinj. Only the Austro-Hungarian court supplier Karl Varhanek, an entrepreneur of Czech origin, operated twelve canneries, from the area around Trieste in the north to the southern Dalmatian islands.
In most of those places, the canning factory was the only sign of the industrial revolution, which otherwise bypassed the then Austro-Hungarian Dalmatia. During the following decades, dozens of new canning factories were opened - over time, around 35 such factories operated in Istria, Dalmatia and the Croatian islands. The employees there didn't just get a salary.
The former workers of those factories proudly talk about their work, no matter how hard it was. Especially during Yugoslav socialism, canning factories in marginalized areas offered women the possibility of regular income and numerous social rights. Those factories were also important for community building.
Today, there are only four fish canning factories in Croatia. This decline points to the challenge faced by this industry, which is also an exemplary example of Croatia's economic transformation: on the coast, along with tourism, there is almost no room for the production sector, literally, because canning factories are often located in locations that are of interest to investors in hotel projects.
At the same time, tourists are not particularly fond of the smells of fish processing.
In Banjole, not far from Pula, there is a large hotel, in the place where the sardine factory used to be located - which today is only remembered by a monument. Salaries in that industry are low today, so it is difficult to attract local labor, because on the coast you can earn more by renting out facilities to tourists.
When "Mirna" set up modern production facilities in Rovinj a few years ago and introduced a second shift, workers had to be recruited from poorer areas within Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Sometimes fish processing today even moves away from fish, where labor is cheap: 20 years ago, the machinery of the canning factory on the island of Vis was moved to Niลก in the south of Serbia.
Relocation of industry is part of economic change. For local communities, however, this does not only mean the end of a long industrial tradition, but also another step towards complete dependence on tourism, which provides employment only seasonally, pushes infrastructure to its limits in summer, mars the coast with a construction boom and turns city centers into kitsch souvenir shops.
In addition, tourist flows are as unpredictable as the abundance of sardines. This became evident during the coronavirus pandemic, when tourists suddenly stopped coming.
In the end, climate change does not only threaten Croatian small bluefish, but also tourism, because the guests will simply be too hot. The future in the Adriatic thus became unpredictable, not only for the sardines in the sea but also for the people by the sea.
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