Why fish is in our blood.

Brothers Umut and Abdullah Tagi won the National Dutch Award for best Haring in the Netherlands 3 years in a row.

So how is it that Turks won a traditional Dutch delicacy competition and brought back the traditional way of preparing and serving haring?

For this, we need to get back to 1970 when 9-year-old Abdullah came to the Netherlands with his parents. Watching his mother gutting and cutting haring, while still pregnant with Umut, made haring a part of his core memories and later even in his being.

At the age of 10, Abdullah was already helping out at the local market in Den Haag, cleaning the fish waste for the largest fishmonger in the region. Throughout the years, he moved into sales and learned all aspects of the fish business. Not long after, Umut joined in, and they opened their first restaurant in 1989.

Next to the restaurant, cleaning haring became their most profitable enterprise in the 1990s. Atlantic was cleaning 10.000 to 50.000 haring daily. Their clients were the majority of the haring buyers, sellers, resellers, and retailers in the Netherlands, and even Abdullah’s previous employer when he was 10 years old.

With the rise of technology, there came automatic haring cleaning machines, for their clients’ price became more important than quality. Abdullah and Umut would not bow to the demands from the market, and decided to continue their traditional hand cleaning methods and deliver haring as intended, affordable and of the highest quality.

As a first-generation Turkish family, this was not an easy task with prominent Dutch families dominating the haring market. For decades, there were people who decided how many, and at what quality and price haring would flood the Dutch market. The haring that Atlantic was allowed to purchase was of below standard quality and at retail prices.

So, while fighting literal whales, the Atlantic wholesale had to close down.

In 2000, the brothers met Hans Hoek, the owner of Sir Fish, who had the same issues and was also determined to change the way things worked in the market.

Sir Fish owned a production and fishing company in Norway that wanted to bring back the best quality haring, at a competitive price.

With this match made in heaven, Atlantic could offer high-quality haring under market prices again, and was starting to make the same people who boycotted then, make a run for their money.

Many of them tried to buy them out, since they couldn’t manipulate the artificial prices anymore.

However, with Atlantic standing firm, rejecting all offers, bringing back quality was the only goal in their pursuit. Abdullah and Umut were protecting their heritage as adopted when they first came to the Netherlands.

With shops in Den Haag and Leiden, the wholesale, and their temp agency for providing haring cutters to other fish mongers, business was booming again. With Abdullah working in the shops, and Umut working in the wholesale. During the peak seasons, Umut slept for weeks in the office on a pullout sofa, putting the clients before everything.

Each year, revenue was growing, and quality was increasing. Atlantic was responsible for 25% of the total Dutch haring sales, distribution, and cleaning.

In 2012, Atlantic won the award for best haring of the Netherlands, with the top 5 consisting of 4 of their clients for whom they provide haring. Their traditional way of cultivating, gutting, and cleaning haring finally received the recognition it deserved. They went on to win this award 3 years in a row.

Every haring we sell is still being cleaned by hand, and by not only providing valuable jobs, keeping traditions and skills alive.

And now, after 50 years of practice, experience, and dedication, it is time for the Tagi brothers to return to their Turkish roots. And present to you, not only their award-winning haring, but also their wide range of fish dishes, all made by their own recipe, special sauces, and presentation.

Welcome to Atlantic Turkey!