NEW BEDFORD — The nation's largest scallop company, Eastern Fisheries, is expanding in China with a scallop farming initiative to keep pace with the growing worldwide market.
Roy Enoksen, co-founder of Eastern Fisheries, told The Standard-Times that while farm-raised scallops are already being produced in large numbers, Eastern wanted to raise its own for a basic reason: "Our whole plan has always been to take it from ocean to the plate," Enoksen said.
According to The Wall Street Journal, which featured Enoksen in a recent article about the scallop business in New Bedford, scallop prices have continued to rise even in the recession because demand continues to increase while the allowable catch in the U.S. fisheries has been capped at about 50 million pounds a year.
Producers have responded by establishing farms off the coast of China and Japan, where 90 percent of farm-raised scallops are produced.
Read the complete story from The Standard-Times.