Saving Seafood

Nutrition

Seafood fraud a hot topic at US restaurant show

May 21, 2019 — Seafood fraud is a hot topic at the ongoing National Restaurant Show, taking place from 18 to 21 May in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Celebrity chefs Barton Seaver, Rick Bayless, and Andrew Zimmern all touched on the topic during public appearances at the show, as did executives from several top foodservice companies.

“The seafood industry as a whole is ill-served and everyone loses when seafood fraud happens,” Barton Seaver, a chef, author, and founder of the Coastal Culinary Academy, told SeafoodSource at the event, which is the largest U.S. restaurant show.

Seaver spoke on a panel about seafood mislabeling and sustainability along with Bayless, who is the chef and owner of Frontera Grill and other restaurants, and Josephine Theal, director of category management for food and hospital management firm Delaware North.

“We as operators create an environment in which fraud can profit,” Seaver said. “If I as a chef am only willing to buy cod, then I’ve created a situation where pollock needs to become cod,” Seaver said. Some restaurants are okay with buying the “flaky white fish of the day” and labeling it “cod,” Seaver added.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US kids aren’t eating enough seafood, study says; here’s how to add more

May 21, 2019 — The humble tuna sandwich, once a lunchbox staple, is making less frequent appearances in school cafeterias across the nation. American children are eating relatively little fish and shellfish in comparison to meat, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The report, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, explores both the health benefits and the risks associated with eating what once swam in the sea while informing parents of the safest, most sustainable choices for their children.

Read the full story at CNN

Buyer Be Aware: Dogfish Is Every Bit as Good as Cod and Far More Plentiful

May 13, 2019 — Dogfish doesn’t have an appetizing ring to it. The name for this member of the shark family has kept it off dinner plates, at least in the United States. In Britain, dogfish is often the key ingredient in fish and chips.

A few years ago, in an attempt to make the fish sound more appealing, the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, New England fishermen, and conservationists tried to rebrand it as “Cape shark.” The effort to create local demand for this plentiful regional species, which grew in number with the collapse of the cod fishery, hasn’t yet taken hold.

With its mild white boneless flesh, Kate Masury, program director for Eating with the Ecosystem, said dogfish is less flaky than cod but just as delicious.

Eating with the Ecosystem, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit that promotes a place-based approach to sustaining New England’s wild seafood, is working with consumers, chefs, suppliers, processors, and fishermen to build a market for dogfish and the many other lower-valued species swimming off New England’s coast.

Read the full story at EcoRI News

Just Five Types of Fish Dominate our Fish Counters. It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way.

May 12, 2019 — Dozens of species of fish and shellfish are caught in New England’s waters. But only a handful show up in most seafood retailers. You can probably list them: cod, haddock, scallops, clams, lobster.

Now, it’s not just anecdotal. A citizen science initiative has found that five species dominate at New England seafood counters and that some of the species that are most common out in the ocean are the rarest in our markets.

That’s largely a reflection of our food tastes but it can have ecological – as well as economic – ramifications.

So, Eating with the Ecosystem – the group that ran the citizen science project – has also released a cookbook to help us enjoy a greater diversity of seafood. It’s called Simmering the Sea: Diversifying Cookery to Sustain Our Fisheries.

Read the full story at WCAI

US squid catchers turn to innovation, MSC in push to boost consumption

May 13, 2019 — The US’ two largest squid catchers and suppliers are taking a similar tack when it comes to plans to boost consumption of their species: product innovation at home targeted at millennials, and the recent Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification of their fisheries to open up new markets, particularly in Europe.

The companies –Narragansett, Rhode Island-based The Town Dock and Cape May, New Jersey-based Lund’s Fisheries — recently teamed up to receive MSC approval for the US Northwest northern shortfin squid (Illex Illecebrosus) fishery. This comes nearly a year after obtaining the MSC’s stamp for the US Northeast longfin inshore squid (Loligo pealeii) bottom trawl fishery last year, the world’s first MSC certification for a squid species. The two firms also catch California market squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) and harvest or procure a wide range of other squid and fish species.

Americans don’t consume a lot of squids — in 2015, the average US consumer ate around four ounces per year, roughly equivalent to a serving of fried calamari rings. That’s where the opportunity lies, Jeff Reichle, Lund’s president, told Undercurrent News.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

There are plenty of fish in the sea. Why do we eat so few?

May 7, 2019 — The waters off New England teem with a wide range of species, from scup, white hake, and mackerel to whelk, surf clams, and peekytoe crab. But despite this abundance, just a small handful of regionally available species dominate the marketplace—mostly lobster, scallops, and cod. Why don’t supermarket shelves better mirror the diversity of local waters?

That question is the subject of a new survey of fish and shellfish diversity in grocery stores and specialty markets in New England. The study, published on Monday by Eating with the Ecosystem, a nonprofit that promotes local and sustainable seafood harvesting in the Northeast, looks for “symmetry”: namely, the balance between the creatures found in nearby waters and the products found in the seafood section. For now, the study found, that proportion is greatly out of whack.

The report is based on the shopping experiences of 86 citizen scientists, who collected data over a six-month period of time. Each week, participants were randomly assigned four species from a list of 52 species commonly found in the waterways where New England fishers harvest their catch. They were instructed to seek their targets out at up to three markets, bring one home, cook out, and rate their experience. Basically, it was adult hide-and-seek but with pollock and sea urchins instead of people.

Read the full story at The New Food Economy

Tilapia, a fish to feed the world, and the deadly virus that may destroy it

May 6, 2019 — A small African fish called the tilapia may be vital for meeting the future food needs of humanity, according to scientists, but they are also concerned that a killer disease discovered in recent years could wipe out the species. That, they warn, would have devastating social and economic consequences for China and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region.

Although its name may not be widely known, the freshwater tilapia is second only to carp as the world’s most widely farmed fish, and China is the largest producer. With global production of farmed tilapia reaching 6.3 million tonnes in 2018 and an estimated market value of US$9.8 billion, the little fish is big business. That’s because it is an essential source of protein, revenue and employment in the developing world.

An advantage of farming tilapia was once its resistance to disease, which is a constant problem in intensive fish farming. But a new virus has caught the industry off guard. Tilapia lake virus, or Tilapia tilapinevirus, was identified in 2014.

Scientists know little more about it, except that it has a morbidity rate of up to 90 per cent, depending on the strain, and is highly contagious. The first indication of the virus on a fish farm is lots of dead tilapia.

Read the full story at the South China Morning Post

Seafood Without The Sea: Will Lab-Grown Fish Hook Consumers?

May 6, 2019 — High-tech meat alternatives are grabbing a lot of headlines these days. Last month, the Impossible Burger marked a meatless milestone with its debut as a Burger King Whopper. Meanwhile, Lou Cooperhouse was in a San Diego office park quietly forging plans to disrupt another more fragmented and opaque sector of the food industry: seafood.

His company, BlueNalu (a play on a Hawaiian term that means both ocean waves and mindfulness), is racing to bring to market what’s known as cell-based seafood — that is, seafood grown from cells in a lab, not harvested from the oceans.

BlueNalu is aiming for serious scalability — a future where cities around the globe will be home to 150,000-square-foot facilities, each able to produce enough cell-based seafood to meet the consumption demands of more than 10 million nearby residents.

But unlike Impossible Foods, BlueNalu is not creating a plant-based seafood alternative like vegan Toona or shrimpless shrimp. Instead, Cooperhouse and his team are extracting a needle biopsy’s worth of muscle cells from a single fish, such as a Patagonian toothfish, orange roughy and mahi-mahi.

Read the full story at New England Public Radio

Lund’s Fisheries Now Proud to Offer MSC-Certified Illex Squid

May 3, 2019 — The following was released by Lund’s Fisheries:

Lund’s Fisheries is pleased to announce that the U.S. Northeast Northern Shortfin Squid (illex) fishery has been certified as sustainable against the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) fisheries standard. Lund’s now offers the only two species of squid in the world to have obtained MSC certification: the company’s loligo squid fishery was certified as sustainable last year.

“Lund’s is at the forefront of providing consumers with fresh, sustainably harvested seafood,” said Wayne Reichle, President of Lund’s Fisheries. “MSC certification for illex squid is just the latest example of our commitment to ensuring that all of our products are responsibly harvested and sustainably sourced.”

With an MSC label, consumers can be sure that their seafood comes from a fishery that is managed effectively and sustainably, and from one that minimizes its environmental impact. MSC certification is widely considered one of the strictest certification labels in the world, the “gold standard” of sustainable seafood. Through its active pursuit of the MSC label for its squid and Atlantic sea scallop products, and its sustainable sourcing of the rest of its product line, Lund’s is a leader in bringing environmentally friendly products to the U.S. and European markets.

“Consumers can be confident that when they purchase squid, scallops, or any other seafood from Lund’s, it comes with a commitment to support the long-term health of our oceans and marine life,” Mr. Reichle said.

Illex squid are migratory and occupy a large range, from Newfoundland to Florida. Unlike many other species of fish, illex squid likely to not be significantly affected by climate change, and some studies indicate that the species may even benefit from warmer ocean temperatures. Fisheries managers are confident enough in the future health of the species that they are proposing to raise the quota this year from 22,915 mt to 24,825 mt, an 8 percent increase.

Lund’s will be showcasing its sustainable squid products at this year’s Seafood Expo Global, taking place in Brussels, Belgium from May 7-9. Stop by booth 6-1225 to meet with our U.S. and European sales staff, who are dedicated to providing sustainable squid and scallop options for you and your customers.

Read the full release here

MSC, ASC sustainable seafood week in France urges consumers to eat responsibly

April 30, 2019 — A joint campaign in France run by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), has just landed the two organizations a Grand Prix Award for Social Responsibility. It was presented during a ceremony in Paris at PRODURABLE, the fair for Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibly.

The prize was awarded for “Semaine de la Peche Responsible” (Sustainable Seafood Week), which was first run in February 2017 and has since become an annual event.

The week of activities highlighted issues including overfishing, illegal fishing, and the importance of safeguarding marine biodiversity and habitats, and fish stocks for future generations. The event has been growing quickly in both size and public profile in recent years.

In competition with 48 other brands, the ASC and MSC were joint winners of the best NGO label category, in recognition of their collaborative efforts with partners, brands, aquariums, institutions and distributors, to mobilize public support for sustainable fisheries and responsible fish farming.

The award was shared with French retailer Carrefour, which won for its support of programs to find permanent living solutions for the homeless.

Read the full story at Seafood Source