Saving Seafood

Atlantic Capes, Northern Wind, Don’s Gulf lead launch of new Mexican bay scallop FIP

December 6, 2019 — Three companies involved in the Mexican bay scallop fishery have launched a collaborative effort to create a fishery improvement project (FIP) in the hopes of securing Marine Stewardship Council certification of the fishery.

Atlantic Capes Fisheries, of Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S.A., Northern Wind of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Don’s Gulf Select of Louisiana have announced a joint FIP to bring the fishery into line with international standards and move toward MSC certification.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Atlantic Capes Fisheries settles sexual harassment suit for USD 675,000

January 31, 2019 — Atlantic Capes Fisheries and BJ’s Service Company, Inc. have agreed to pay a total of USD 675,000 (EUR 587,600) in a settlement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission related to four women who said they were sexually harassed in the workplace.

The lawsuit, which was settled on 30 January, stems from allegations by the EEOC that sexual harassment was perpetrated by managers, line supervisors, and co-workers of IQF Custom Packing Inc. in Fall River, Massachusetts. The allegations include unwanted touching, solicitations for sex, and crude comments, according to the EEOC, which constitute violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

The settlement will be paid out between Atlantic Capes and BJ’s – a staffing agency located in New Bedford, Massachussets. The terms include Atlantic Capes paying USD 130,000 (EUR 113,000) to three women, and USD 75,000 (EUR 65,200) to one woman. According to Atlantic Capes, three of the women have decided to remain employed with the company, while the workers who harassed the women are no longer employed at either company.

According to Atlantic Capes, the lawsuit stems from claims that “largely predate” the company’s acquisition of the Fall River packing facility in 2013.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Daniel Cohen, founder of Atlantic Capes, wind farm, sustainability champion, dead at 63

November 23, 2018 — Daniel “Danny” Cohen, the founder of Atlantic Capes Fisheries, one of North America’s largest scallop, clam, oyster and finfish harvesters and processors, and a major champion of wind farming and sustainable fishing practices, has passed away at the age of 63.

Cohen, who died in Cape May, New Jersey, heroically battled cancer for an extended period of time, an obituary published by Saving Seafood confirms.

The Fall River, Massachusetts-based company Cohen started in 1976 after graduating from Cornell University, in New York, with a degree in architecture, has grown into a fully integrated seafood company operating out of three states — Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey —  with more than 400 employees, 25 harvesting vessels, two unloading facilities, three processing plants and a fleet of delivery trucks, based on details contained on the company website.

Scallop industry executives, including those at competing companies, expressed their sadness on Wednesday.

“His passing marks the end of an era. He was a pioneer of the scallop industry, one of the men at the roundtable,” said Rob Rizzo, a commodities manager and longtime scallop industry professional at Eastern Fisheries, in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

“He was always professional, always a gentleman. He was a selfless champion of sustainable fishing and the scallop industry, standing up for everyone in the industry. And he treated everybody from the captains and crew of his vessels to the truck drivers and the workers in the processing plants as if they were equally important to his organization,” he said.

“It’s a very sad day. He will be greatly missed.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Atlantic Capes Fisheries Founder Danny Cohen Passes Away After Battle With Cancer

November 23, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Danny Cohen, the founder and CEO of Atlantic Capes Fisheries, passed away on Tuesday after battling cancer. He was 63-years-old.

Cohen started Atlantic Capes Fisheries after taking over a small fishing dock and several fishing boats that his father, Joseph Cohen, left to him. Over the years he served as Chairman of the National Fisheries Institute Scientific Monitoring Committee, and was a member of the NFI Clam Committee. He also worked with Rutgers University and founded Cape May Salt Oyster Company, “re-vitalizing the Delaware Bay oyster industry by growing disease resistant shellfish.”

National Fisheries Institute president John Connelly released the following statement on Cohen’s passing:

Danny Cohen, founder of Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc. was uniquely committed to both the sustainability of the resource and the sustainability of his employees.

Danny was influential in organizing efforts to promote the sustainable harvest of clams, scallops, and other seafood. He took a long-term view of the fisheries and encouraged a balance between industry and environment that would prove an instrumental equilibrium for crew, vessels, and the fish.

Even as Atlantic Capes grew to a multi-species company with dozens of boats, a fleet of trucks and hundreds of employees, his strategy and steady leadership remained the same.

Danny is remembered for serving as Chairman of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) Scientific Monitoring Committee and on the NFI Clam Committee.

His foresight, innovation, commitment, and his unforgettable laugh, will be missed.

Cohen is survived by his daughter Dorit, his sister Maxi, brother Barry and sister-in-law Ronnie, and his companion Sharon. A funeral will be held Sunday, November 25 at 10:30 a.m. at Shirat HaYam in Ventnor, NJ. Shiva will follow at Barry and Ronnie Cohen’s home in Linwood, NJ.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Saving Seafood Mourns the Passing of Danny Cohen, Founder and CEO of Atlantic Capes

November 21, 2018 — With sadness, Saving Seafood reports the passing of Daniel M. Cohen, founder and CEO of Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc. Danny was a longtime supporter of Saving Seafood, our National Coalition for Fishing Communities, and our member organizations, including the Fisheries Survival Fund and the Garden State Seafood Association.

Danny was featured in a 1997 New York Times profile, “Not on Board, but at the Helm,” and in 2014 testified before the U.S. Senate on the effects of climate change on wildlife and agriculture (he appears in this C-SPAN video beginning at approximately 1:19:30).

His obituary follows:

Daniel Myer Cohen, a pillar of the East Coast commercial fishing industry, and an eloquent spokesperson for commercial fisherman throughout America, died on November 20, 2018 in Cape May, NJ, at the age of 63, after a protracted and heroic struggle with cancer.

“Danny,” as he was known, took over the small fishing-dock and several fishing boats left to him by his father, Joseph Cohen, in 1976 and built it into Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc., an industry leading vertically integrated seafood enterprise.  ACF’s fleet of scallop, clam and other fishing vessels working out of company owned and managed facilities in Ocean City Maryland, Cape May and Point Pleasant New Jersey and additional ports in New England, supply seafood to company owned processing plants in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Early in his professional life and in his emerging role as a public advocate, Danny recognized that ensuring a sustainable wild harvest industry depended upon responsible environmental and resource stewardship.  Among other activities in the field of fisheries science, policy and management, Danny appeared before Congress and served as Chairman of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) Scientific Monitoring Committee and on the NFI Clam Committee, both of which work to sustainably manage the major shellfisheries of the mid-Atlantic region.

Illustrating the advancing impact of applied research to the seafood aquaculture, in the 1990s Danny began working with Rutgers University and founded Cape May Salt Oyster Company, re-vitalizing the Delaware Bay oyster industry by growing disease resistant shellfish whose triploid oysters, championed early on by the slow food movement, can be found on the menus of some the nation’s finest restaurants.   Tetraploid technology which is also being applied to scallop aquaculture is revolutionizing shellfish production across the globe.

Well over a decade ago Danny also recognized the impact offshore wind development would pose to the commercial fisheries. In an effort to protect the fishing industry while harnessing its maritime expertise, Danny galvanized the industry by founding Fishermen’s Energy of New Jersey, LLC which was poised to build the first offshore wind farm in the United States.  Unfortunately, New Jersey’s political climate stymied a decade of progress.  Nonetheless, in 2009, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities named Danny New Jersey’s “Clean Energy Advocate of the Year.”

Whether in aquaculture, wild harvest, processing and marketing, offshore wind development or a host of other projects spanning the globe, Danny Cohen has been a leading light for over 4 decades.

Daniel “Danny” Myer Cohen was born on March 3, 1955 in Vineland, New Jersey. He was the third and youngest child of Joseph Cohen, a trucking and commercial boat operator born in the Alliance Colony and his beloved mother, Doris Cohen nee Maier, a refugee from Nazi Germany.  Danny expressed his love of Judaism through an interest in Musar, a Jewish ethical, educational, and cultural movement whose name encapsulates Danny’s philosophy of life: Musar can be translated “as upright conduct.”

Danny is survived by his daughter Dorit with ex-wife Mindy Silver, his sister Maxi, brother Barry and sister-in-law Ronnie; his nephew, niece and cousins; companion Sharon and by the many friends he has made in the seafood industry; the captains and crew that are the company’s lifeblood  and by the nearly  500 member ACF family that Danny helped to build and nurture. The family also extends its gratitude to the home health aides from Synergy HomeCare as well as the hospice nurses and staff from Holy Redeemer Hospice.

A funeral will be held Sunday November 25th at 10:30 am at Shirat HaYam located 700 N. Swarthmore Avenue in Ventnor NJ. Shiva will be held at the home of Barry and Ronnie Cohen in Linwood NJ. In lieu of flowers, charitable contributions in Danny’s memory can be made to the Sarcoma Foundation of America to help fund research into Sarcoma cancers. Arrangements are made by Roth-Goldsteins’ Memorial Chapel.

 

MASSACHUSETTS: 100 gallons of oil spilled into harbor Tuesday

July 5, 2018 — Residents living along the coast of New Bedford harbor and those enjoying a day in the water may have noticed the odor of diesel fuel to accompany their Fourth of July celebration as crews from Frank Corp work to clean about 100 gallons that spilled into the harbor on Tuesday.

The spill occurred in the area of Pearse Park boat ramp Tuesday night at around 8 p.m., according to the Coast Guard. Fairhaven Fire and EMS said the spill affected from the fishing vessel Pacific Capes, which is owned by Atlantic Capes Fisheries. The spill extended from Linberg Marine to the Seaport Inn Marina.

Fairhaven Fire and EMS was hopeful that as the temperature increased on Wednesday, the oily sheen would dissipate.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

East and West Coast NCFC Members: ‘H.R. 200 Will Create Flexibility Without Compromising Conservation’

June 25, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Today, East and West Coast members of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) submitted a letter to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in support of H.R. 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, which would update the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The letter, which was also sent to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Emeritus Don Young, and other top Congressional officials, states that H.R. 200 will “create flexibility without compromising conservation.”

“We want a Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) that allows for both sustainable fisheries management, and the long-term preservation of our nation’s fishing communities,” the groups wrote. “We firmly believe that Congress can meet these goals by allowing for more flexibility in management, eliminating arbitrary rebuilding timelines, and adding other reforms that better take into account the complex challenges facing commercial fishermen.”

The letter does not include support from the NCFC’s Florida, Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic members, which supported the legislation from the beginning, but withdrew their support due to a late change to the Manager’s Amendment that would negatively impact their region. The NCFC’s East and West Coast members continue to support the bill on its overall merits, but share the concerns of Gulf and South Atlantic fishermen over this late alteration.

Organizations affiliated with the NCFC do not accept money from ENGOs, and represent the authentic views of the U.S. commercial fishing industry.

The letter signers represent the American Scallop Association, Atlantic Red Crab Company, Atlantic Capes Fisheries, BASE Seafood, California Wetfish Producers Association, Cape Seafood, Garden State Seafood Association, Inlet Seafood, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Lund’s Fisheries, North Carolina Fisheries Association, Rhode Island Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, Seafreeze Ltd., Town Dock, West Coast Seafood Processors Association, and Western Fishboat Owners Association.

Read the full letter here

 

Atlantic Capes installs massive IQF scallop tunnel in $5m plant upgrade

May 23, 2018 — Atlantic Capes Fisheries (ACF), one of the largest scallop firms on the US East Coast, has completed the primary phase of a $5 million investment in a plant in Fall River, Massachusetts, the company’s CEO told Undercurrent News.

The investment at ACF’s IQF Custom Packing plant includes an individual quick frozen (IQF) tunnel which is the largest of its kind in the US scallop sector, from Iceland’s Skaginn3X.

Also, ACF has installed a Skaggin3X slurry ice and delivery system, a new Hayssen Bagger, and new scallop grader in the plant.

Before the end of the year, ACF plans to complete the next phase of the IQF Custom Packing upgrade, Danny Cohen, ACF’s CEO, told Undercurrent.

This will see more value-added packing equipment, two truck loading bays, an expanded production office and automatic box making equipment added to the plant.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Sea Star crew thanks Coast Guard for rescue

February 21, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The fishermen aboard the vessel Sea Star, which sank last week, expressed their appreciation Tuesday to those who rescued them as they returned to work.

Chad Maguire, the managing member of Old Testament Fisheries, sent his “sincere and very heartfelt thanks” to the Coast Guard through a news release.

“Without the outstanding response by these brave Coast Guard men and women, the crew of the Sea Star may have had a much different experience,” the release said.

Aircrews from an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and HC-144 Ocean Sentry arrived about 18 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard to find the Sea Star taking on water on Feb. 15.

The Coast Guard ordered the four fishermen to abandon and a rescue swimmer pulled each person up to the helicopter.

“Old Testament Fisheries is elated that the crew were quickly and safely reunited with their families,” the release said. “It is clear the significant impact that the crew’s drills instruction training played in their successful rescue.”

Atlantic Capes Fisheries owns the Sea Star through which it charted it to Old Testament Fisheries. A spokesperson for Old Testament Fisheries said it’s a common practice for companies to finance vessels acting as a bank for fishermen.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Atlantic Capes Fisheries debuts ‘game-changer’ in scallops

February 8, 2018 — FALL RIVER, Mass. — A new blue package at Atlantic Capes Fisheries is being called a “game-changer” for the scallop industry.

In partnering with Maxwell Chase, an Atlanta-based innovative packaging company, Atlantic Capes began shipping some of its scallops in its new Blue SeaWell container, which the companies say will double the life of fresh all natural scallops to about 10 days.

“It’s really exciting,” said Carl Achorn, a salesperson at Atlantic Capes Fisheries Inc. “Because of this new technology, it’s the opportunity to show people what real fresh scallops from New Bedford are like way out in Michigan, way out in Ohio.”

Shipping with the Blue SeaWell technology began last week. Atlantic Capes shipped 10 containers holding 5 pounds each. By the end of the week, the company filled 1,000 containers.

“It’s a product we believe in,” Operations Manager Chris Brown said. “Again, if we’re in Montana and we wanted scallops just like we’re fortunate enough to take home here, how would we want them packed? This is the way we want them packed because the results have proven themselves.”

The scallops are packed into the blue container without any preservatives added. The innovation begins at the bottom of the container where a semi-transparent fabric covers 12 wells, which look like an enlarged ice cube tray. The the fabric is specifically made to allow any fluid that a scallop excretes to cipher through. A unique recipe of a sand-like substance sits at the bottom of each well and helps absorb any fluid, which allows for a fresh scallop.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times