Instead, the fishing industry processes them into fish meal and oil to make food pellets for salmon farming and livestock feed - especially for Danish pigs.
But later Grupo Brescia regained a foothold in the fish products business with Tecnologica de Alimentos SA, which is now the largest producer of fish meal and fish oil in the world.
Price controls have caused staples such as maize meal, sugar and cooking oil to vanish from the shops, to the delight of black-marketeers, who are often ruling-party hacks or army officers.