Fishing constitutes one of the pillars of the Port of A Coruña and one of the great economic engines of the city. With a leading position in Spain, with an average of 40,000 tons of fresh fish and shellfish per year, it generates a business volume of around 100 million euros per year in first sale, and about 10,000 jobs.
The evolution of this strategic sector for A Coruña is closely linked to the launch of the current Lonja, which has become a European benchmark for its management model, for its modern facilities and for its safety and hygiene guarantees . The first auction at these facilities was held on February 20, 2004. From that date on, the growth in catches has been exponential, going from 24,000 tons to the current 40,000 tons, which confirms the success of the management formula. , exercised by the professionals of the fishing sector themselves, promoting greater agility in decision-making and in the search for solutions to satisfy the needs of operators and users. This new system, pioneer in Spain, integrates all members of the fishing community into the Board of Directors, from shipowners to wholesalers and auctioneers.
The facilities, located on the Linares Rivas dock, stand out for their spaciousness, open spaces, hygiene, good access and facilities for operators and users to carry out their work. Designed by the architect César Portela, the building has 31,341 square meters of useful area. Its elongated shape provides a solution to the needs of the sector: a wide front in contact with the seafront and an access facade for large cargo vehicles.
The distribution of the facilities is organized into twelve service areas, including the docking pier and unloading cantile, which allows 23 typical vessels to operate in the Gran Sol area. Another of the most important areas is that of preparation and exhibition, which occupies the front of the building to the sea and has a length of 368 meters, divided into eight rooms totaling more than 8,000 square meters. The fish reaches them, both directly in fishing vessels and by truck from other ports, which is exhibited in boxes for auction. The working temperature is 4 degrees Celsius and the rooms have been arranged on a slope to facilitate cleaning, the evacuation of meltwater and the transport of merchandise. The rooms are connected to the so-called dirty corridor, which forms the backbone of the entire ground floor and runs through it from end to end, connecting the rooms with the exporters' warehouses. On the ground floor is the handling room, open-plan and refrigerated at 10 degrees Celsius. The facilities are completed by an esplanade with the capacity to park more than a hundred vehicles.
The quality of the facilities, together with the accurate formula of direct self-management, have led to a great concentration of the fishing activity in the Lonja not only by the operators of A Coruña, but also by fleets from other ports in the province, which are They have opted to market their fish and shellfish in A Coruña, attracted by the high number of registered users, generating a knock-on effect that has allowed this port to expand its specialization in height and coastal trawling to currently concentrate all fishing gear. With regard to the products with the greatest presence in the auction, the concentration of operators has led to a great diversity of species in the auction rooms, with horse mackerel, hake, barnacle or Norway lobster occupying the first places, which leads the volume of catches across Europe.
In total, there are around 3,000 direct users of the Lonja de A Coruña, where some 50 deep sea and coastal trawling boats and 120 inshore boats operate. To the 1,200 crew members who operate on these ships, we must add transportation personnel, ship suppliers or workshop workers, among other sectors.
La Lonja is the main infrastructure linked to the fishing activity of the port of A Coruña, which has two docks specifically dedicated to this sector. The dock made up of the docks of Linares Rivas, La Palloza, part of the Muelle del Este and the third line of San Diego is dedicated to the commercialization and handling of fish. For its part, the Oza dock houses the departments for shipowners, supply ships and netters and other facilities, in addition to the docks for mooring boats.
Another of the great assets of the Lonja is the presence in the port area of ??large distribution centers of the most prominent commercial complexes, which have large warehouses and require a constant volume of merchandise in large quantities that they acquire in the Coruña Lonja to distribute to all points of purchase in the country.
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