Salmon farms are based on supplies from the tropics.
Outside the factory, hundreds of motorcycles, textile workers’ preferred transportation in the busy urban traffic of Pune. We’re in the highlands of Western India. Although Pune is not commonly known in Europe, the city accommodates seven million people.
A yellow crane unloads reels of rope. They are ready to be shipped to the customer. Thick, white mooring, spun on coils and wrapped in transparent plastic, are lifted aboard the first of several maximally decorated Tata trucks parked outside the factory.
Every Friday
“We ship several containers from Mumbai to Norway every week,” says Archana Patil, logistics manager at Garware Technical Fibers, to SalmonBusiness.
“We send them every Friday,” she adds.
Also read: Here’s how nets for 160m salmon cages are made
The recipient of Garware’s containers is the Norwegian fish farming service company Selstad.
The fast-growing Indian company has become a major supplier of fish farming networks, mooring briefs and lice skirts.
The trucks are ahead of a three-hour drive, in scorching sun, on the highway running west toward Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay.
Also Read: Producing mooring ropes that are stronger than steel wire
Trading Post
When the British first set foot in India, some 400 years ago, the vast realm accounted for a quarter of the world’s total gross domestic product. Bombay, which was then a newly constructed trading station on a sandbank on a riverbank on the Indian West Coast, went on to be the best port between Africa and Tokyo Bay.
The city still has a good harbour.
The massive container port, just outside the city centre, has endless queues of trucks and rail cars on one side and up to 400 meters long container ships on the other.
The smog is low over the skyscrapers as Garware’s Bell helicopter flies across the metropolis. It has been a long time since this was a trading station on a sandbank, founded by Portuguese traders.
Also read: They have been producing textiles for 3,000 years: How to make nets, moorings and lice nets
Mumbai is well known today for its Bollywood films. Delhi is the political capital, but, with its 22 million inhabitants, Mumbai is India’s undisputed financial centre.
