May 8, 2026 — A new report on fisheries policy by the public research firm Ocean Strategies concludes that a fundamental shift is needed to position seafood as a core component of the American food system.
“We don’t have a fish problem; we have a competitiveness problem,” said authors Brett Veerhusen and Hannah Heimbuch. “The U.S. has built one of the best fisheries management systems in the world. Now the challenge is selling seafood in a tough, modern marketplace. Access to fish defined the first 50 years. The next 50 will be defined by whether we can compete in the marketplace.”
Seafood does not need to be reinvented, but it does need to compete, and faces several challenges in doing so — including rising costs of doing business at a time when consumers are simultaneously pulling back on seafood spending, they said.