Mail & Guardian reporter
To meet Harry Mentor is a delight. He is a small man with a large and irrepressible love and passion for the only thing he knows the sea.
A product of his mother’s influence, with more than 40 years of being at sea, he is rock steady in his vision for the future of the South African fishing.
Born in Simonstown, Cape Town, to a subsistence fisherman, Mentor’s long career in the industry started in his teens when he began selling fish to local communities in the southern peninsula. Forced removals relocated him first to Ocean View and then Mitchells Plain where he started a small supply depot.
A formal small-scale business, Cape Point Fishing, developed from this operation and was the very first of black businesses to supply the restaurant and retail industry.
Cape Fish Processors was later formed and in 1998 it expanded its processing plant to South African Bureau of Standards requirements.
While the factory is unable to process any of its current quotas because of its small size and lack of modern processing equipment, it serves as a vital source of employment for the surrounding community.
In 2000 Mentor’s dream of building his own modern fishing vessel was realised and Cape Fish 1, a 56-foot pelagic trawler specially built to meet the company’s quota allocation was launched at St Helena bay. The company also owns a second vessel, the Avril W, through a joint venture partnership with Oceana.
Dissatisfied with black business not owning a meaningful stake in the supply chain of the fishing business, Mentor and Cape Fish Processors embarked on their most ambitious project yet, to build a R40-million fish-processing factory in the heart of the most impoverished region in the Western Cape.
In the past 10 years there have been no significant developments or job-creation opportunities in Mitchells Plain, Crossroads and surrounding areas. The region is also known for its high rate of crime and its social degradation.
The project will provide much-needed employment to an area with an approximate 65% unemployment rate. It will generate an additional 400 jobs in the industry and considerably contribute to the urban renewal of the region. An additional 500 people will be employed during the two-year building project.
The building process is a black-empowerment project and all black contractors who specialise in this kind of project will be invited to tender for specific aspects of the construction. The new plant will possess a range of highly specialised facilities to process a range of products.
The company is consulting with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for assistance with Hazards Analysis Critical Control Point compliance for the plant, ensuring the meeting of the highest international standards.
The CSIR will also assist the company in exploring innovative ways of beneficiating by-products and by-catch like extracting nutrients from what would usually be thrown away as fish waste. These nutrients could assist in developing food products that would help in poverty eradication programmes.
The level of equipment and production lines will be the most advanced in the country. The new facilities will substantially contribute to the advancement of subsistence fishermen by providing them with development training, a resource centre, as well as processing and marketing assistance.
The company would be one of the few smaller companies with the infrastructure to process, market and distribute a substantial catch.