May 18, 2020 — The power of transparency when it comes to building lasting relationships with consumers is apparent in the results of the latest Feed4Thought survey conducted by international aquafeed company Cargill.
According to Pilar Cruz, president of Cargill’s aqua-nutrition business, transparency in the supply chain is critical when building consumer trust – a notion reiterated in the new survey’s feedback.
May 13, 2020 — The coronavirus pandemic has decimated the seafood industry in the U.S. Following the widespread closure of restaurants and food service locations, many of the country’s fisheries have reported sales dropping as much as 95%. Thousands of commercial fishers are at risk of bankruptcy, The Washington Post reported.
Shortly after sales started to plummet, seafood companies — including Trident, Pacific Seafoods, High Liner, Cargill and Fortune International — wrote a letter to the Trump administration to ask for financial support. Although the industry anticipated the need for billions of dollars, the government only approved an aid package for $300 million at first.
Now the government is offering additional support with another $300 million in financial aid, as well as an attempt to bolster domestic production. Currently, domestic aquaculture production is either done on land or in state-controlled waters and is only a small portion of U.S. seafood. Aquaculture accounted for 20% of the country’s seafood production in 2016, according to NPR. The outlet reported that U.S. production is dwarfed by imports, which account for 90% of the country’s seafood consumption.
May 11, 2020 — An executive order issued May 7 by the administration of US president Donald Trump will have “huge” and far-reaching impacts on the country’s ability to farm its own seafood, particularly offshore, sources told Undercurrent News. The order establishes the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as the federal government’s lead agency for aquaculture permitting, set a two-year deadline for permitting most projects and seeks to develop “aquaculture opportunity zones”, among other provisions.
Its importance should not be “underestimated”, Margaret Henderson of the group Stronger America Through Seafood (SATS) told Undercurrent.
“We in the seafood business know how much value we bring to the American public, we know how much value we bring to the global economy. But it’s not something you see batted around every day at the Oval Office,” she said.
She added that SATS was founded following a Nov 2017 meeting among representatives of companies such as Cargill, Pacific Seafood Group, Red Lobster, Fortune International, and Taylor Shellfish. The members met with the leadership of NOAA and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross about their hope to bring change to the sector.
“They indicated to us a willingness to move something like this back then. We’d been in constant communication and had several White House meetings since that time and have been working very close with the entire NOAA team who really should credit for the language in this product. They’ve been working on this for a very long time,” Henderson said.
March 26, 2020 — The leaders of America’s domestic fishing industry have appealed to the Trump administration for help with the severe economic hardship created by the coronavirus epidemic. With consumers stuck at home and restaurants closed, the $100 billion-per-year demand for U.S. fishery products has evaporated overnight, according to the coalition – putting tens of thousands of well-paid jobs at risk. The coalition is calling for about $4 billion in federal assistance to maintain the fishery supply chain until the economy is back on its feet.
“Supply chains cannot be turned on and off like a light switch. Once lost, a supply chain and the infrastructure that supports it can be exceptionally difficult and costly to restart. Failure to act boldly now to preserve our country’s domestic seafood infrastructure will impose far greater costs on our economy and cause permanent damage to our nation’s ability to harvest, farm, process, and distribute seafood products,” the group wrote.
Their request includes:
August 9th, 2019 — Latitude, a plant-based feed for aquaculture manufactured by Cargill, will likely be available for commercial use by 2020, the company told Seafood Source.
The product just received the okay for commercialization from the United States Department of Agriculture, which reviewed it through a risk assessment. The agency “no longer considers it a regulated GM crop,” Mark Christiansen, managing director for Cargill’s specialty oils business, told Seafood Source.