March 13, 2013 — At the New Bedford Seafood Port Tour buyers from around the world are escorted to various fish processing plants to see what they are buying on the production end.
I tagged along Tuesday with the New Bedford Seafood Port Tour, in which buyers from around the world are escorted to various fish processing plants to see what they are buying on the production end.
It's something that everybody in this town ought to see for themselves, because it's impressive and we ought to be proud of it. The people involved sure are.
I don't know if it was the overcast that added a level of gloom, or whether it was knowing so much about the troubles in the fishing industry in the Northeast.
The tour is kept very upbeat, you understand. It's a spinoff of the Boston Seafood Expo, and it's sponsored by Eastern Fisheries, which this year contributed a vessel tour and lunch with New Bedford scallops.
The scallop business is still very strong. I was told one-third of all the scallops consumed on Earth come from the Port of New Bedford. I hope that's true.
But what was also evident as the smaller-than-usual group of about 16 did the walk-through at a handful of plants is that there is a huge amount of fish being brought here from elsewhere.
We saw a lot of frozen Alaska cod, and various other groundfish, being processed, packed and shipped. It was a slow day at the seafood auction. This country is importing about 90 percent of the fish that it consumes, and that matters to us in this city.
Kathleen Newell of the Massachusetts export center told me that the side trip to New Bedford was the high point of the U.S. visit by these buyers, and that was plain to see.
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