The Neptune Herring Oil Factory () is a former industry in the town of

Melbu Melbu is a village in Hadsel Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The village is located on the island of Hadseløya on the northern shore of the Hadselfjorden. Melbu is one of the two main population centres on the island of Hadseløya, and ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

Vesterålen Vesterålen ( , ; ) is a district and archipelago in Nordland county, Norway. It is located just north of Lofoten and west of Harstad. It is the northernmost part of Nordland county. Sortland is the largest town, situated near the center of the a ...

district. It has been given cultural heritage status. The factory was set up in 1910. For a long time, production was based on

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

. When herring was no longer available as raw material, the factory switched to using

capelin The capelin or caplin (''Mallotus villosus'') is a small forage fish of the smelt family found in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and Arctic oceans. In summer, it grazes on dense swarms of plankton at the edge of the ice shelf. Larger capel ...

. In the 1980s, the supply of this fish as raw material also failed, and the factory shut down in 1987. All of its equipment was sold to Morocco. During the 1900s there were many factories of this type in the Norwegian fisheries, and few of them are preserved today. Many of them, like the Neptune factory, were established at the beginning of the century and were shut down in the 1980s. The Neptune Herring Oil Factory was added to the list of priority technical and industrial cultural heritage by the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage. This list comprises several facilities of different types, and it is based on extensive registration work. The conservation of the factory in Melbu focuses on preserving herring oil factories. Starting in 1991, the buildings were managed as part of the Norwegian Fishing Industry Museum, which was established in the spring of 1991. The Norwegian Fishing Industry Museum offers nationwide coverage of its field and has a national function.

References

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External links

Neptune Herring Oil Factory
at kulturminnesok.no
Neptune Herring Oil Factory
at the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage website
Neptune Herring Oil Factory
at the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology website Hadsel Cultural heritage of Norway Defunct companies of Norway Norwegian companies established in 1910 Companies disestablished in 1987 Food and drink companies established in 1910 Food and drink companies of Norway 1987 disestablishments in Norway

References

Further reading

External links