Saving Seafood

ProntoForms on iPhone and iPad helps Cooke Aquaculture save over $2.1M annually

August 10, 2018 — The following was released by ProntoForms:

ProntoForms Corporation (TSXV:PFM), the global leader in smart mobile forms for enterprise, today announced how Cooke Aquaculture, the largest producer of Atlantic Salmon in North America, deployed ProntoForms to transform its operational processes with a customized iOS solution, resulting in over $2.1M in annual cost savings. The solution also helps Cooke field staff become more efficient, saving about 4,200 hours per month.

Cooke Aquaculture is using ProntoForms on iPhone and iPad in the field to streamline multiple operations and maintenance processes – daily inspections of boats, barges, fish pens, and other sea farming equipment. Data submitted from the boats is transmitted to the office in real time and securely integrated into MS SharePoint to ensure rapid and easy access of up-to-date information, including custom document formats, for management, auditors, and regulatory bodies. Field data is also integrated into the company’s Aquaculture Operations system of record to track site performance, feed consumption, and inventory across multiple sites and regions.

“We’re almost 100% paperless now in our department because of ProntoForms and their iOS solution for iPhone and iPad,” says Mark Fraser, Remote Feed Supervisor at Cooke Aquaculture. “One hour of savings per day for 200 users equals 4,200 hours per month, or about $180K/month in savings. Time to train staff to use ProntoForms on iPhone and iPad has been less than an hour given how intuitive the software and hardware are to use.“

“Our no-code platform enables operations groups and enterprise IT teams to quickly deploy a mobile solution, expand to new processes, develop new workflows, and completely transform their operations,” says Alvaro Pombo, CEO of ProntoForms. “Enabling field technicians to reliably integrate field data into systems of record using a powerful mobile front end is a crucial capability for large corporations. As this deployment shows, our mobile solution for iOS is robust, easy to use and manage, and delivers a significant return on investment for our enterprise customers.”

For more details, watch the Cooke Aquaculture customer success video here.

KIMBERLY HAMILTON: Maine has an opportunity to be a global player in aquaculture

August 2, 2018 –Maine is resilient. As former economic sectors decline, we find new ways to market our natural resources, provide jobs for Maine families, and support local and regional economies.

Today, Maine is on the cusp of another economic resurgence — this time in aquaculture. Not one, but two significant projects are under development in midcoast Maine, both slated to raise Atlantic salmon in state-of-the art facilities. One of them, Whole Oceans in Bucksport, will redeploy paper mill infrastructure at the former Champion International mill site. The other, Nordic Aquafarms, will add to the growing industry in Belfast, once a chicken production capital of the world.

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food producing sector, growing at 5 percent annually between 2003 and 2016, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2018 State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture report. By 2030, aquaculture will account for 60 percent of global fish food consumption, helping to preserve our fragile wild fish population. By these measures, it’s not surprising that aquaculture holds the power to transform economies.

If Maine plays its cards right, we can capture a significant portion of this transformative energy, competing with Scotland, Norway and Canada to meet the expanding global demand for nutritious fish protein. Importantly, Maine stands to gain more than 2,000 new jobs over the next 10 years as a result of growth in the aquaculture sector, according to FocusMaine’s own extensive research. The growth of related jobs would push this number even higher.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

Conservation groups’ pact will help save Atlantic salmon

May 30, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — Two conservation groups said Tuesday a deal has been struck with commercial fishermen in Greenland and the Faroe Islands that will help thousands of vulnerable Atlantic salmon return to rivers in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Commercial fishing for Atlantic salmon is prohibited in the United States, where the fish’s Gulf of Maine population is listed under the Endangered Species Act. But the Atlantic Salmon Federation and North Atlantic Salmon Fund said their new deal with Greenland and Faroe Island fishers is a major step toward recovery because it will dramatically reduce fishing.

Coastal Greenland and the waters off the Faroe Islands are important feeding grounds for salmon. Fishermen who work those waters take fish that originate in both jeopardized populations in Maine and New Brunswick, Canada, and healthy populations elsewhere.

The agreement places new limits on fishing, including ending the Faroe Islands fishery.

Here’s a look at the agreement and the status of Atlantic salmon in the United States and Canada:

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

 

Washington: 8 months after farmed-fish escape, lively Atlantic salmon caught 40 miles upriver

April 20, 2018 — Upper Skagit tribal fishermen caught a lively Atlantic salmon more than 40 miles up the Skagit River Tuesday, eight months after Cooke Aquaculture’s Atlantic salmon net pen collapsed at Cypress Island and sent more than 300,000 Atlantics into the home waters of Washington’s Pacific salmon.

The Atlantic caught Tuesday had bones in its stomach, indicating it had eaten some kind of fish.

“We are definitely concerned,” said Scott Schuyler, natural resources director for the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe. Schuyler caught the fish while out drift-netting for hatchery chinook intended for a ceremonial feast at the tribe’s upcoming blessing of the fleet.

He caught the Atlantic on the first set.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

 

Washington Governor Jay Inslee signs bill banning Atlantic salmon farming

March 23, 2018 — Washington Governor Jay Inslee on Thursday, 22 March, signed a bill into law that will phase out Atlantic salmon and other non-native fish farming by 2025.

Canada’s Cooke Aquaculture, the only company that farms Atlantic salmon fish farms in Washington state, was the target of the ban after more than a quarter-million non-native salmon escaped in August 2017 from a Cooke net-pen near Cypress Island, Washington.

“This bill will phase out non-native marine net pens in Puget Sound. These present a risk to our wild salmon runs that we cannot tolerate,” the governor said.

Inslee also vetoed a section of the bill that requesting that the issue of fish farming be revisited if new science for the industry is developed.

“The economic, cultural, and recreational resources of these incredible waters will no longer be jeopardized by the negligent actions of this industry,” Sen. Kevin Ranker, who sponsored the bill in the Washington State Senate, said. “We’ve invested so much in trying to recover our wild Pacific salmon populations, there is no sensible purpose for allowing non-native species into the Salish Sea. The day-to-day impact of invasive aquaculture – feces, disease, loose food pellets or lice –  could have serious impacts. The state ban is a strong stance to ensure the protection of our marine environment and native salmon populations in the Salish Sea.”

In response to the bill being signed into law, Cooke Aquaculture spokesman Joel Richardson said the company was considering its next steps.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Premium scallop line, rebranding effort part of the next chapter for Northern Wind

March 15, 2018 — New Bedford, Massachusetts-based seafood supplier Northern Wind, celebrated a milestone 30-year anniversary at the 2018 Seafood Expo North America event in Boston, Massachusetts. Company founders Ken Melanson and Michael Fernandes, along with Northern Wind’s co-CEO George S. Kouri, said they look forward to blossoming the success of Northern Wind even further in the years to come.

“We’re looking forward to the next chapter, because the first 30 years have been so robust and fruitful for the company,” Kouri said. “The next chapter for this company brings a lot of different opportunities for us – it brings opportunity for change; it brings opportunity to increase channels of distribution; it brings opportunities for new product sourcing; it brings opportunity for our re-branding efforts in packaging, re-facing the company in the image we want to project. It goes on and on, including Fair Trade.”

Besides scallops, the supplier has established a wide-ranging portfolio including ahi tuna, Atlantic salmon, North American lobster, monkfish, headfish, skate, and value-added seafood offerings. But the business has made its name with scallops.

“We have strict and strong historical relationships with vessels. We have state-of-the-art facilities with very well-financed capital improvements that enable us to process and produce probably more scallops than anyone in this industry,” Kouri said. “We’re very much known for our quality, our credibility, our loyalty to our supply side, and our customer service.”

A year ago, the company was the first scallop producer in the nation to receive Fair Trade certification. Building off demand from the foodservice sector for premium scallops, the company has launched its Captain’s Call Five-Star Premium Scallops.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

NOAA is pro-aquaculture, but won’t weigh in on salmon farm ban

March 13, 2018 — BOSTON — Don’t look for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to challenge the recent decision by Washington state to end salmon farming off its coast. The federal government’s hands are tied, said a senior NOAA official at the Seafood Expo North America, in Boston, Massachusetts, on Sunday afternoon.

“We do have separation of powers in the United States between the federal government and the state government,” said Michael Rubino, NOAA’s director of aquaculture, when asked. “And this was largely a state government matter.”

Washington state governor Jay Inslee is expected to soon sign House Bill 2957, a bill passed by the state’s Senate, 31-16, on March 2 that would allow the leases for offshore aquaculture facilities there to expire by 2025. The state’s House voted roughly two weeks earlier to support the bill.

Washington state’s dramatic action followed the much-publicized escape, in August, of more than 250,000 Atlantic salmon from a Cooke Aquaculture facility near Cypress Island.

When asked if NOAA might weigh in, Rubino simply responded that NOAA doesn’t have a say in the matter.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

British Columbia minister will push to move salmon farming onshore

March 13, 2018 — The minister of forest, land and natural resource operations, and rural development in British Columbia, Canada has called for moving open-net fish farms from the ocean to land-based operations.

Doug Donaldson stated publicly that though the option to ban Atlantic salmon farming is not currently available to him, as it’s regulated by the federal government, he is in favor of phasing out ocean-based salmon farming in favor of closed containment.

“We’re very concerned as a government about protecting wild salmon and the migratory routes that they use and we’re very interested in moving to closed containment where feasible,” he said in an interview with CBC News.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Cooke Aquaculture continuing to fight Washington ban even as it ponders next steps

March 9, 2018 — In an interview with SeafoodSource, Cooke Vice President of Communications Joel Richardson discussed his company’s efforts to convince Washington Governor Jay Inslee of the merits of the industry as the governor considers signing a bill that would phase out non-native finfish aquaculture in his state. Richardson also discussed the formulation of his company’s back-up plan in case it was unsuccessful in convincing the governor to veto the bill.

SeafoodSource: Is Cooke making any efforts to reach out to Gov. Inslee as he considers signing the bill?

Richardson: Yes, we will continue to reach out to Gov. Inslee over the coming days to urge him to veto HB 2957. Over the last few months we have provided Gov. Inslee and all legislators in Washington with evidence-based science from well-respected, credible fishery scientists to inform and educate on sea farming practices.  We are also aware that the Washington Fish Growers Association is now urging Governor Jay Inslee to veto the bill this week calling on a ban on Atlantic salmon aquaculture in state waters “Ill-conceived and politically motivated rather than based on the best available science.”

SeafoodSource: In what ways was science not taken into proper account by legislators as they considered the bill?

Richardson: You will have to ask the governor and legislators to answer that question.  However, in the aquaculture industry’s view, it’s appalling that that lawmakers have ignored calls to drop the ban from some of the world’s top aquaculture and fisheries scientists, including from the state Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, who refuted false and misleading claims made by anti-sea farming groups, tribes, and politicians that Atlantic salmon, when and if they escape, could interbreed with Pacific stocks or colonize rivers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that the science from decades of peer-reviewed research does not support the conspiracy theory that Atlantic salmon that escape from net pens will colonize our rivers and/or interbreed with native stocks.

Read the full interview at Seafood Source

 

Washington bans salmon farms

March 6, 2018 — A year ago, Cooke Aquaculture was a mainstay business in Washington state waters. The company had made a significant investment in nine local salmon farming sites when it purchased Icicle Seafood’s assets in 2016. As of Friday, March 2, the company’s open-ocean Atlantic salmon net pens are banned in state waters, to be phased out by 2025.

The impetus for the ban is the catastrophic failure of a pen near Cypress Island, Wash., on Sunday, Aug. 20. The pen contained 305,000 Atlantic salmon that were just about ready for market at 10 pounds each, making for more than 3 million pounds of invasive fish teeming at the edges of wild salmon territory.

In February, both houses of the state Legislature passed bills banning the practice of salmon pen farming, and Gov. Jay Inslee openly supported the legislation. On Friday, the Washington house and senate negotiated the discrepancies in those bills to finalize a ban they could pass to the governor’s desk. The bipartisan Senate vote was 31-16.

Before the final votes, Cooke Aquaculture CEO and Founder Glen Cooke made last-minute appeals to state lawmakers in person.  Last Wednesday, a collective of leading marine scientists penned an open letter to the Legislature in defense of the salmon farming industry.

Indeed, many stakeholders see the ban as a punitive response to a company that appeared to shirk its own responsibility in the immediate aftermath of the spill. However, the result is that it closes the opportunity entirely — not just to Cooke Aquaculture.

Though the response to ban an entire industry may seem extreme, the perfect storm of events leading up to the ban created extraordinary circumstances. Local response to the spill was considerably more swift and strong than the eclipse high tides on which the company first blamed the collapse.

Read the full story at the National Fisherman