Saving Seafood

Seafood tech companies demonstrate a leap forward in freshness monitoring using sensors and blockchain

April 6, 2021 — The following was released by Seafood Analytics:

Sustainable seafood company Envisible is teaming up with Certified Quality Foods, Inc. (dba Seafood Analytics) to capture product quality data on Envisible’s blockchain-enabled Wholechain traceability system. The initiative is starting with sockeye salmon coming from Northline Seafoods in Bristol Bay, Alaska, demonstrating an innovative commitment to transparency in seafood supply chains.

Northline is capturing product quality metrics at the point of harvest using Seafood Analytics’ handheld Certified Quality Reader (CQR), which measures the salmon’s electrical properties. Electrical properties are measured at the cellular level and are related to degradation, heat abuse and quality. The resulting quality data is then seamlessly uploaded into Wholechain, which logs this and other supply chain data on Mastercard’s provenance blockchain from the source all the way to grocers nationwide under a private label brand available at over 12 regional stores.

While the entire line of Envisible’s Frozen Seafood launched in 2019 is fully traceable and sustainably sourced, Northline’s sockeye salmon is the first of its kind to take traceability a step further with transparent quality readings. In fact all three companies – Seafood Analytics, Envisible and Northline Seafoods – have been recognized for their leadership in sustainable seafood at the Fish 2.0 Global Innovation Forum held at Stanford University.

About Northline Seafoods. Northine Seafoods, which is Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified, has been lauded for innovations such as ultra-low freeze technology used on its floating processor directly on fishing grounds, and began utilizing the CQR method in 2019. Seafood Analytics feeds the objective quality measures into a customized data dashboard for its customers, enabling food companies to take actionable steps to improve their products and processes. The method has been implemented beyond seafood in poultry cultivation, and in many cases allows companies to bypass expensive and inefficient lab testing.

About Envisible. Envisible brings this technology and story to market with its robust distribution channels and focused mission of bringing traceability and transparency to traditionally opaque food systems. In addition to the Quality Index, Envisible has also committed to capturing Key Data Elements outlined by the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability, an industry-wide standard launched in 2020 to eliminate environmental and labor abuse in seafood supply chains. Not only does the technology ensure responsible sourcing, but Wholechain’s storytelling feature means a QR-code at the point of sale educates consumers about the sustainability and quality initiatives behind their seafood.

About Seafood Analytics. Seafood Analytics provides state of the art technology to measure and monitor seafood quality. The objective, science based technology measures science based technology measures fish quality instantly and provides a cloud based data platform that enables users to track quality and build supplier report cards. Seafood Analytics is based in Dallas Texas. For more information – info@certifiesqualityfoods.com.

ALASKA: Big sockeye runs and struggling kings leave Bristol Bay managers with a complicated balancing act

April 2, 2021 — Fifty-one million sockeye are forecast to return to Bristol Bay this summer.

If that holds, commercial fishermen will be able to harvest around 37 million reds. That’s 13% more than the average harvest of the past decade.

But concerns remain about the numbers of chinook salmon in the Nushagak District on the west side of Bristol Bay — which leaves the biologists who manage the fishery with a complicated balancing act.

Faced with another huge sockeye run this summer, managers in the Nushagak District say they will try to allow fishermen to harvest the sockeye and also conserve chinook.

Tim Sands, the district’s area management biologist, describes the job as trying to walk a fine line between “getting as many kings up the river as we can, but still provide opportunity to harvest sockeye salmon.”

For years, biologists around the state have wrestled with declining numbers of chinook, fish that are central to subsistence ways of life across Alaska, and also targeted by sport fishermen. Since 2007, the state’s chinook runs have consistently declined, forcing managers to restrict or close fishing in certain areas.

Read the full story at KTOO

A Rising Tide Lifts All Fishers

April 1, 2021 — In the summer of 2013, a male captain was accused of raping and assaulting a female fisher multiple times during their week-long isolation in Prince William Sound, Alaska.

This horrific encounter points to a sobering problem for female fishers: the specter of sexual assault. Harassment and abuse aren’t necessarily more common in the fishing industry, but several factors make the situation on boats unique. For one thing, fishing involves spending weeks in a confined workplace, often in remote regions with no cellphone service. For another, many fishing vessels constitute their own small businesses, with no human resources department or codified policy that workers can turn to. And as with workers in other rural industries such as forestry and agriculture, who have fewer support systems to access than employees in urban areas, fishers tend to experience and grapple with abuse on their own.

That’s why Bristol Bay, Alaska, fisher Elma Burnham is asking her colleagues to sign a safety pledge that she created in 2017. To date, more than 500 captains, deckhands, processors, and tenders have signed the pledge, promising to uphold an understanding of consent and to work toward abolishing abuse in the industry; to intervene against harassment; to provide a safe place to work; and to pay, teach, and actively promote fishers who aren’t cisgender men.

Burnham grew up in an oystering family off Long Island Sound in Connecticut and now works as a Bristol Bay set-netter, fishing for sockeye salmon during the summer. She started developing her pledge after the 2016 US presidential election, which for her felt like a symbol of entrenched misogyny. She wanted to see what she could do on a local level, so she started Strength of the Tides, a group that brings female, transgender, and nonbinary fishers together to network, support one another, and ask for boat owners to sign the pledge. Although organizations like this are more common in commercial fishing, shipping, and other maritime sectors, says Burnham, they are rare to nonexistent in the world of small-scale fisheries.

Although Burnham says that she’s never faced harassment or abuse on the job, she knows “that’s not the case for everyone.”

Read the full story at Hakai Magazine

New Economic Study: 2.2 Billion Reasons to Protect Bristol Bay

March 22, 2021 — A report titled “The Economic Benefits of the Bristol Bay Salmon Fishery” shows the fishery’s economic benefits exceeded $2.2 billion in 2019, generating more than 15,000 jobs while feeding hundreds of thousands of people. Produced by McKinley Research Group and released by the Bristol Bay Defense Fund, the recently gathered data will help quantify the importance of protecting Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine.

Bristol Bay produces 57% of the world’s sockeye salmon catch and is a $990 million economic engine in Alaska alone. Economists estimate the induced impacts for the Pacific Northwest at $800 million.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Alaska Files to Defend Salmon Fisheries in Southeast Alaska

March 17, 2021 — The State of Alaska has moved to intervene in a federal case that threatens state management of Alaska’s salmon fisheries.

The Wild Fish Conservancy, a conservation organization based in Washington state, claims that Alaska’s management of fisheries under the Pacific Salmon Treaty threatens the survival of several salmon stocks in Washington and Oregon, and the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales that depend on them.

The lawsuit seeks to shut down all salmon fisheries in the federal waters off the coast of Southeast Alaska.

Read the full story at KINY

Alaska’s salmon harvest for 2021 is projected to be a big one

March 17, 2021 — Alaska’s salmon harvest for 2021 is projected to be a big one, with total catches producing a haul that could be 61% higher than last year, due mostly to an expected surge of pinks.

Fishery managers are predicting a statewide catch topping 190 million fish compared to 118.3 million in 2020. The breakdown by species includes 46.6 million sockeye salmon (a 203,000 increase), 3.8 million cohos (1.4 million higher), 15.3 million chums (6.7 million more), 296,000 Chinook (up by 4,000) and 124.2 million pink salmon (a 63.5 million increase).

In its report Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2021 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2020 Season, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game provides breakdowns for all species by region.

Along with the projected 49% increase in pink salmon catches, Bristol Bay will again rule the day with sockeye runs to the region’s nine river systems expected to exceed 51 million fish and a harvest of 36.35 million reds, 13% higher than the 10 year average.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: 2021 Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association Board Seat Candidates

March 12, 2021 — The following was released by the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association:

There are two open Board seats in this year’s election. A total of four members have been nominated and qualified as Board Seat Candidates:

Seat B (Alaska Resident Seat):

  • Tim Cook

  • George Wilson, Jr.

Seat E (Non-Alaska Resident Seat):

  • Larry Christensen

  • Michael Jackson

Candidate statements can be found on our website (LINK). Questionnaire answers from Candidates will be posted to the same link later this month.

BBRSDA Board members are elected to three-year terms (this year’s open seats will be up for re-election in 2024). Ballots will be mailed out to BBRSDA members in early April and election results will be posted to the BBRSDA website no later than May 13, 2021. See the Elections page for more information about the 2021 BBRSDA Board Seat Election timeline. BBRSDA members will also be able to submit write-in votes in this year’s election.

ROBERT VANDERMARK & LINDSAY LAYLAND: United we stand against Pebble Mine

March 10, 2021 — President Joe Biden has the perfect opportunity to make good on his promise to unite our ideologically fractured country by moving quickly to preserve Bristol Bay, Alaska, one of our nation’s greatest natural and cultural treasures. Bipartisan support for this issue makes it a popular and easy win early in his presidency. And on top of that, protecting Bristol Bay supports thousands of American jobs and promotes food security both domestically and internationally during these difficult times.

Pebble Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of a Canadian mineral exploration and development company, is seeking to extract copper, gold, and molybdenum from Bristol Bay, which could permanently damage more than 100 miles of rivers and streams and 2,200 acres of wetlands in the surrounding area.

The Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and independent technical experts have all determined that even without an accident or a catastrophic event, the Pebble Mine would destroy critical fish habitat and aquatic resources in the near pristine watershed. Bristol Bay needs federal protection to forever preserve this unique ecosystem from the potential harm this mine would inflict.

Wildlife from belugas to eagles to brown bears inhabits this region, but the economic and cultural heart of this area is salmon. Bristol Bay’s annual wild sockeye salmon runs are the largest on Earth. The area supports a $1.5 billion annual commercial fishery, creates 14,000 jobs in fishing and tourism, and produces more than half of the world’s supply of wild sockeye.

Read the full opinion piece at National Fisherman