Saving Seafood

US skate fishery approved for MSC certificate

June 24, 2019 — The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has certified the U.S. Atlantic winter skate fishery in the Northwest Atlantic against its fisheries standard.

The assessment was requested by the Sustainable Fisheries Association, which includes Cape Ann Seafood Exchange, Inc.; Marder Trawling, Inc.; and Seatrade International. Carried about by assessment body MRAG Americas, Inc., the certification process was completed as part of a scope extension under the U.S. Atlantic spiny dogfish fishery certificate, MSC said.

“Congratulations to Sustainable Fisheries Association on achieving MSC certification for another well managed U.S. fishery,” said Brian Perkins, the regional director of the Americas for the MSC. “They have demonstrated their hard work in sustaining the skate fishery, and in meeting the MSC fisheries sustainability standard.”

John Whiteside, an attorney who represents the Sustainable Fisheries Association, said the certification will be effective until 2024, with routine annual audits conduction at various intervals within that timeframe to ensure continuous compliance with the MSC’s standard.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTS: Seafood auction plans to reopen Tuesday

September 5, 2018 — The Cape Ann Seafood Exchange expects to resume landing fish Tuesday, almost two weeks after the U.S. Labor Department effectively shuttered the business by seizing its bank accounts because of unpaid court-ordered damages.

Kristian Kristensen, the owner of the fish auction on 27 Harbor Loop, said Thursday night that he had received final paper work from Labor Department officials that unfroze his business and personal bank accounts.

“Now we can start putting things back in order, pay some people and hopefully start landing fish again on Tuesday, the day after the holiday,” Kristensen said. “That’s the plan.”

Kristensen credited the assistance of U.S. Rep Seth Moulton’s office, state Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr and state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante in helping mediate a new consent order and payment schedule with the Labor Department.

“I’d have to say they’re at least 70 percent responsible for getting this done,” Kristensen said. “Without their help, this probably wouldn’t have happened.”

The seizure of the bank accounts stemmed from a 2016 lawsuit filed by the Labor Department against Kristensen and his two businesses, Cape Ann Seafood Exchange and Zeus Packing Inc., both at 27 Harbor Loop. The lawsuit sought $407,996 — $203,998 in unpaid back wages owed about 130 employees and an equal amount in liquidated damages.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Fed seizure of accounts closes fish auction

August 27, 2018 — Last Friday night, without any notice, the U.S. Labor Department seized the bank accounts of the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange, leaving the fish auction and seafood processor unable to pay fishermen for landed fish and imperiling even further its ability to profitably operate on the Gloucester waterfront.

CASE owner Kristian Kristensen first knew there was trouble afoot when he started receiving text messages from his bank that his business balance had dipped below $25.

“I didn’t put the pieces together until Saturday,” Kristensen said Thursday. “That’s when I knew it was the Department of Labor.”

What followed was a business nightmare, as Kristensen tried to contact fishermen and other vendors about his inability to access his bank accounts for payments.

“Obviously at that point, checks were bouncing all over the place,” Kristensen said.

On Thursday afternoon, following two frantic days, Kristensen was still immersed in negotiations with Labor Department officials to regain control of his bank accounts and establish a plan to repay the balance owed in a manner that will allow him to remain in business.

“We’re about halfway there, but not all the way,” Kristensen said late Thursday afternoon. “We’re not quite there yet, but almost. It’s not like I don’t want to pay this.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Massachusetts: Local fishing titans battling in court

January 26, 2018 — Two of the Gloucester waterfront’s heavy hitters are squaring off in federal court in a lawsuit with at least $710,000 at stake — and potentially much more.

Kristian Kristensen, owner of the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange auction and Zeus Packing on Rogers Street, is suing longtime Gloucester fisherman Giuseppe “Joe” DiMaio, alleging DiMaio has failed to repay the approximately $710,000 balance remaining on two corporate and personal loans made to him by Kristensen and his related businesses.

Kristensen is seeking the remaining balance on the loans, as well as “costs, expenses and attorneys’ fees.” The suit also says Kristensen will seek “damages resulting from defendants’ abrupt and unjustified repudiation of their contract.”

It claims the auction suffered more than $400,000 in lost auction fees and has lost “an important supplier of fish” to the auction.

The suit, filed Jan. 19 in U.S. District Court in Boston, names DiMaio as the defendant, along with separate corporations he controls which own four Gloucester-ported groundfish vessels — the F/V Capt. Joe, the F/V Lucy, the F/V Tyler and the F/V Orion.

It alleges that DiMaio and Kristensen entered into an exclusive agreement in March 2012 in which Kristensen, through his Zeus Packing business, lent DiMaio $175,000 in return for DiMaio’s pledge to exclusively land all of his catches and dock all of his boats at the longtime Gloucester seafood auction.

“The parties operated under the exclusive sales agreement for over five years,” the suit alleges. “In July 2017, without notice or warning, defendants suddenly stopped selling the fish they caught on their vessels to plaintiffs and instead began selling said fish to plaintiffs’ competitors.”

Neither Kristensen nor DiMaio could be reached Thursday for comment. Their respective attorneys also did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Seafood supplier tries to make inroads with local eateries for Gloucester-landed fish

June 7, 2017 — Frank Ragusa is making a point, leaning forward in his chair and punctuating each sentence by banging his hand on the conference table, producing thumps so loud they later sound like explosions on the recording of the conversation.

In between bursts of percussion, the chief executive officer and partner in Gloucester’s Finest Seafood makes the same impassioned point he has been making since he returned to Cape Ann two years ago from Seattle as the director of fresh seafood at Gloucester Seafood Processing.

The point is this: The Gloucester story still plays in the farthest reaches of the nation. The saga of America’s oldest commercial fishing port, of slicker-clad, fishermen wrestling fresh marine life out of the cold waters of the Atlantic, still strikes a chord.

Out there.

“Most of our biggest customers right now are outside New England,” Ragusa said while sitting in the conference room of the seafood processing company he founded last year as a tenant within the confines of the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange on Harbor Loop.

Rising from the ashes of GSP’s surreal closure last year by the Mazzetta Company, Gloucester’s Finest Seafood is at the heart of Ragusa’s crusade to help breathe new life into America’s oldest fishing community by promoting its bounty of freshly harvested seafood.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Feds: Fish firms owe workers $203K in damages

April 14, 2017 — Kristian Kristensen and his two Harbor Loop companies — Cape Ann Seafood Exchange and Zeus Packing — must pay more than $200,000 in liquidated damages to 132 employees in a settlement over violations of overtime and record keeping.

The U.S. Department of Labor said an investigation by its wage and hour division unearthed violations from October 2011 through September 2014. The probe determined Kristensen and the companies owed $203,998 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages. Liquidated damages are monetary compensations for a loss or a person’s rights or property, awarded by a court judgment.

The Labor Department said the defendants paid the back wages in 2015, but refused to pay the damages and civil penalties assessed for the violations.

The Labor Department then filed suit in March 2016 in U.S. District Court in Boston to recover the unpaid amounts.

“After almost a year of litigation and negotiation, the defendants agreed to settle by consent judgment,” the Labor Department said in a statement. Kristensen did not return calls from the Times seeking comment Thursday afternoon.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: City hosts Scottish, Indonesian industry groups for day

March 22, 2017 — The third and final day of the international Seafood Expo North America was unfolding in Boston on Tuesday. But as far as the city of Gloucester was concerned, the real action was here.

For the second consecutive year, the city supplemented its presence at the massive seafood show by playing host to groups of foreign fishermen and seafood processors willing to trek to end of Route 128 to see Gloucester for themselves.

The groups, which featured fishermen and seafood executives from Scotland and Indonesia, were treated to lunch at Cruiseport Gloucester —baked stuffed haddock, sauteed green beans and Sicilian cookies from the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association — and tours of the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange on Harbor Loop and Intershell in the Blackburn Industrial Park.

It was yet another element in the city’s campaign to promote its Gloucester Fresh brand and its strategy of stockpiling international seafood contacts that just might blossom into tangible business assets in the future.

The two groups had met individually with Gloucester officials during the first two days of the seafood show at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and didn’t finalize the plans for their visit until Tuesday morning.

“We’re so pleased that you decided to come visit us,” said Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken. “There is so much that we share culturally as harvesters of seafood from the ocean.”

The visit came one day after the city hosted a reception and cooking demonstration at the seafood expo to further promote the Gloucester Fresh brand. The reception drew more than 75 show participants, as well as state and local officials.

Read the full story from The Gloucester Times here 

MASSACHUSETTS: Shrimp lovers lining up for local catch

March 2, 2017 — Joe Jurek knew his catch would be popular. He just didn’t know how popular.

Jurek, a Gloucester-based groundfisherman who specializes in yellow-tail flounder on most fishing days, now holds the rarified position as the only Massachusetts fisherman allowed to fish for northern shrimp in the Gulf of Maine.

His tenure as shrimper-in-residence will last only two more weeks, much to the dismay of local northern shrimp lovers — including Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken — who literally have trooped down to the dock with buckets to try to buy the cold-water delicacies. The local shrimp have disappeared from seafood retail shops in the last four years the shrimp fishery has been closed.

“Once people found out about it, it was like a bunch of seagulls,” said Romeo Theken, who along with a couple other dozen friends put in an order for about 230 pounds of the small, sweet shrimp. “Now people know the process, that they have to sign in at the auction and buy it through a seafood dealer.”

Jurek said he’s averaging 350 to 400 pounds of the shrimp per fishing day, which he lands at the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange at an average off-the-boat price of about $6.50 a pound.

Jurek, owner and skipper of the 42-foot FV Mystique Lady, is the lone Massachusetts participant in the eight-week Gulf of Maine winter shrimp sampling program. The study also includes eight trawlers from Maine and one from New Hampshire.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester fishermen achieve sustainability certification for Acadian Redfish, Haddock and Pollock

August 19, 2016 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

GLOUCESTER, Mass. — To prove that their Acadian redfish, haddock and pollock fisheries meet rigorous sustainability requirements, Gloucester-based Sustainable Groundfish Association, Inc. (SGA) has achieved certification to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fisheries Standard. This science-based standard is the world’s most credible and recognized standard for environmentally sustainable wild-caught seafood.

Kristian Kristensen of Cape Ann Seafood Exchange, a member of SGA, said: “MSC certification allows consumers to buy New England redfish, haddock and pollock with the confidence that the fisheries will continue to be operated and managed in a sustainable manner. We are committed to preserving a way of life for commercial fishermen and their families while minimizing ecosystem impact to insure these fisheries are sustainable for generations to come.”

Acadian redfish, haddock and pollock are all lesser known fish species that New England fishermen have turned to as economically viable and sustainable alternatives. The total combined commercial harvest for these fish, which are caught in the waters of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, was valued at more than $21 million in 2013. The redfish and pollock fisheries currently harvest less than half of their annual quotas.

Brian Perkins, MSC regional director – Americas, said: “The MSC’s vision is for oceans to be teeming with life for future generations. We are extremely pleased to see the US Acadian redfish, haddock and pollock fishery succeed in the MSC process and we hope to be their partner in creating and maintaining new markets.”

New England benefits from a concentration of certified sustainable fisheries. However, consumer awareness of the abundant sustainable seafood offerings from area sellers remains low. To address this, the MSC recently launched a campaign to educate New England consumers about identifying sustainable seafood products. MSC will take its “Good Catch!” campaign and promo video directly to consumers this month with events at Whole Foods and Big Y grocery stores, which feature MSC at their fresh fish counters, in greater Boston, Springfield and Great Barrington, as well as at Green Fest and the Quincy Farmers Market.

The independent assessment of the Acadian redfish, haddock and pollock fisheries was conducted by SAI Global Assurance Services, an accredited third-party conformity assessment body. SAI Global Assurance Services assembled a team of fishery science and policy experts to evaluate the fishery according to the three principles of the MSC Fisheries Standard: the health of the stock; the impact of fishing on the marine environment; and the management of the fishery. The MSC process is open to stakeholders and all results are peer reviewed.

Feds: Fish companies on hook for not paying overtime

April 7, 2016 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — The U.S. Labor Department has filed suit against two Gloucester waterfront businesses and their owner, seeking more than $200,000 in damages after the company failed to pay overtime to its workers over a three-year period.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Boston and announced this morning, targets Zeus Packing Inc. and Cape Ann Seafood Exchange, both based at 27 Harbor Loop, and their owner, Kristian Kristensen, is seeking $203,998 in liquidated damages for 132 workers, designed to compensate them for hardship they sustained by not having received the money they should have been paid, said Carlos Matos, the Labor Department’s wage and hour division’s Massachusetts district director this morning.

The suit says Zeus Packing Inc. and Cape Ann Seafood Exchange failed to pay the workers $203,998 in overtime wages due from October 2011 through September 2014 in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

While Kristensen and his companies paid the workers the $203,998 in back wages due in December 2015, Kristensen is contesting the liquidation damages payment, Matos said.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times