Saving Seafood

American Seafoods appoints new CEO, COO

February 23, 2022 — American Seafoods Group, one of the largest at-sea processors of Alaska pollock and Pacific hake in the world, announced it has appointed Einar Gustafsson to take over as CEO from Mikel Durham.

The company announced the shift on 18 February, as Durham announced she was stepping down and that was looking forward to “taking a break and spending time with family.” Durham was hired in 2016 and helped turned around the company’s operations after previous debt issues. She also led the company as Bregal sought a suitor for its stake – an effort that has thus far been unsuccessful.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

“A calculated and secret scheme”: US CBP alleges willful Jones Act violations by pollock transporters

September 15, 2021 — The U.S. government accused the operators and clients of a dead-end rail line in New Brunswick, Canada, used in transporting Alaska pollock to the U.S. East Coast, of engaging in “a calculated and secret scheme” to escape the restrictions of the Jones Act, which requires all domestically-caught seafood to be transported via vessels built in the United States with U.S. materials.

The filing in a U.S. District Court in Alaska on 14 September came in response to a lawsuit from American Seafoods subsidiary Alaska Reefer Management (ARM) and the company that operates the New Brunswick facility, Lineage Logistics subsidiary Kloosterboer International Forwarding (KIF), challenging approximately USD 350 million (EUR 294.3 million) in fines issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection against them and their contracted transportation partners. The suit was filed on 2 September.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Alaska pollock giant American Seafoods lands former top NOAA fisheries official

June 11, 2021 — Alaska pollock supplier American Seafoods has hired Chris Oliver, a former top administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as special advisor on government affairs in the company’s regulatory division.

Oliver has has a long career in fisheries. In 2017, he was designated by presidential appointment as Assistant Administrator for Fisheries at NOAA, where he was responsible for the management of commercial and recreational marine fisheries and protected species throughout the US Exclusive Economic Zone, which encompasses the Alaska pollock fishing grounds.

Oliver worked at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council — the government agency charged with managing the Alaska pollock fishery and setting its annual catch quotas– for more than 30 years, as a fisheries biologist, a deputy director, and finally as executive director for 16 years.

Read the full story at IntraFish

A Look at Women in Top Seafood Management on International Women’s Day

March 8, 2021 — Monday, March 8 marks International Women’s Day. To celebrate, we’re taking a look at women in top seafood management roles.

This past October the International Organisation for Women in the Seafood Industry (WSI) compiled data on how many women have leadership positions in the seafood industry. The study was only the third time that WSI had compiled data, but according to their findings, in 2020 women at top positions (including executives and board) grew to 14%, which is the “highest ever recorded.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

Seattle researchers aim to stop the spread of COVID-19 infections in Alaskan fishing industry

October 15, 2020 — As Washington-based fishing companies are heading to Alaska in the coming days and weeks, thousands of their employees will be participating in a project aimed at early detection and control of COVID-19 infections.

With close quarters and crew members sharing cabins, fishing ships are ripe for spreading the disease. This summer, American Seafoods, a leading processor in the North Pacific and Bering Sea, had COVID outbreaks on three of its massive trawlers and some of its workers received care at a tiny clinic in Unalaska.

“Alaska is at high risk of an infected workforce impacting small, mostly Native communities with little resources to deal with an outbreak,” said Joshua Berger, maritime director for the state’s Department of Commerce.

Read the full story at MSN

Covid-19 outbreaks keep sidelining vessels owned by one of Seattle’s largest fishing companies. No one’s entirely sure why.

August 6. 2020 — Late last month, sickness took hold of a fishing trawler that had left port in Seattle in June. The sick crewmembers spurred the American Triumph, part of a fleet of six vessels owned by American Seafoods (ASF), to dock in Alaska, where more than 80 crewmembers soon tested positive for Covid-19.

This wasn’t the first Covid-19 outbreak aboard a vessel owned by ASF, a Seattle-based seafood company that bills itself as one of the largest at-sea processors of fish in the world. In early June, three of the company’s Seattle-based fishing trawlers—including the Triumph—were forced to dock in Bellingham, a college town a couple hours north of the Emerald City, after crewmembers fell ill with Covid-19.

Any outbreak on a commercial fishing vessel—many of which are roughly the length of a football field, with the ability to process and freeze hundreds of tons of fish right on board—is noteworthy. But what makes the recent Alaskan outbreak aboard the American Triumph particularly noteworthy is that it represents the second such outbreak aboard that same vessel during this fishing season. That’s despite ASF having taken seemingly thorough precautions against Covid-19 before the company’s vessels left port in May. The company had screened crewmembers for the virus, tested them for antibodies, and quarantined them prior to setting sail. Other Seattle-area seafood companies have screened and quarantined crews on their vessels, too, and none have experienced outbreaks so far.

So why—even after imposing stricter measures—did the American Triumph experience a second outbreak? While some critics panned ASF’s earlier preventative steps as half-measures, the latest outbreak occurred only after ASF appeared to follow industry and government recommendations for preventing outbreaks of Covid-19 aboard fishing vessels. Just what went wrong?

Read the full story at The Counter

ALASKA: A fishing boat docked in Dutch Harbor with 85 COVID-19 cases

July 21, 2020 — More than two-thirds of the crew of a huge factory fishing vessel docked in the Aleutian fishing port of Dutch Harbor has tested positive for COVID-19, local authorities announced Sunday.

The 85 cases are on board the American Triumph, owned by Seattle-based American Seafoods — one of the biggest players in the billion-dollar Bering Sea pollock fishery.

The Triumph arrived in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor on Thursday, with seven crew members reporting symptoms consistent with COVID-19.

All seven were tested for the virus upon arrival, and six of those tests came back positive, officials announced Friday. That prompted staff from Unalaska’s clinic, Iliuliuk Family and Health Services, to test the remaining 112 crew.

All crew members were restricted to either the vessel or their isolation locations while in Unalaska, city officials said.

Read the full story at KTOO

No COVID-19 cases found on American Seafoods trawler in Alaska

June 18, 2020 — Health officials in Alaska found no cases of COVID-19 aboard an American Seafoods trawler that recently arrived in Dutch Harbor to fish for Bering Sea pollock. The ship, the Ocean Rover, docked in the Unalaska port on Sunday, 14 June, where, according to a press release from the city, local health officials worked together with American Seafoods to screen and test crewmembers.

“In a coordinated effort between the IFHS Clinic, City of Unalaska, State of Alaska Health and Social Services, and American Seafoods, all 121 members on board responded to health questionnaires and were tested for COVID-19 as warranted. Sixteen crew members were found to have possible symptoms of COVID-19 and were quarantined pending test results. All tests returned negative. The Ocean Rover is offloading frozen product and will return to sea,” the press release read.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

A Seattle fishing company has had more than 100 COVID-19 cases on its ships. They’re heading to Alaska this summer.

June 9, 2020 — As America’s meat producers contend with thousands of COVID-19 cases among processing workers, seafood companies have drafted rigorous plans to ward off similar spread of the disease as their summer season looms in Alaska.

But with that season still gearing up, the industry has already been shaken by its first major outbreak, aboard a huge vessel with an onboard fish processing factory. Last week, Seattle-based American Seafoods confirmed that 92 crew from its American Dynasty ship had tested positive for COVID-19 — nearly three-fourths of 124 people onboard.

Fishing executives had been working long hours to prevent just that type of disaster, and the news hit them hard.

“It was like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe this.’ We had done so much — each company had worked so hard to try to avoid this happening,” said Brent Paine, executive director of United Catcher Boats, a trade group whose members fish for pollock and cod off Alaska and another whitefish called hake off Washington and Oregon. “None of us have ever worked so hard in our lives than we have in the last two months, without a doubt.”

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Seattle-based American Seafoods to screen 2 more crews after most on third vessel test positive for COVID-19

June 4, 2020 — Seattle-based American Seafoods, after most of the 126-person crew aboard its American Dynasty tested positive for COVID-19, has decided to screen the crews of two additional vessels.

The new round of testing involves the crews of the American Triumph and the Northern Jaeger as they dock in Bellingham, according to a company statement.

“We’re conducting these tests out of an abundance of caution,” said Mikel Durham, the company’s chief executive.

All three of American Seafoods’ vessels had been participating in the Pacific whiting harvest off the Northwest coast with large crews onboard to operate the vessels and equipment that processes and freezes the catch. Their work often entails long hours of close-quarters labor in a season that started last month.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times