Saving Seafood

Only way is up for pollock prices in 2019

November 20, 2018 — The prices for all forms of pollock look set to continue to increase next year, sources in the US, Russia, China and Europe told Undercurrent News.

Prices for pin-bone out (PBO) blocks, double-frozen fillet blocks, and the headed and gutted (H&G) raw material the latter is based on, all look set for higher levels in 2019, having already firmed in 2018, the sources said.

During the China Fisheries & Seafood Expo, held Nov. 7-9 in a venue close to Qingdao, ex-warehouse prices of around $3,500 per-metric-ton were being discussed for PBO blocks for A season. Prices for B season of 2018 were done around $3,350/t. Also, double frozen fillet block prices of around $3,200/t are also being discussed for next year.

“We see the price of $3,500/t reached and confirmed and we will take it up from there,” Fedor Kirsanov, CEO of Russian Fishery Company (RFC), told Undercurrent at the show, of the situation with PBO. US suppliers and also a large European buyer confirmed this level.

The level in the A season of 2018 was around $3,000/t (see image below and use the Undercurrent prices portal for interactive data), a leap from the very low level of around $2,350/t hit in the B season of 2017, as the price bottomed out. The pace of the increase has shocked buyers, but producers have been quick to point out this is only a return to a historical norm.

“We felt the fall was pretty quick. Now, it’s going more back to normal. It’s also not like pollock has gone off the charts. It’s back to a level where everyone can make money. It’s going back to a level where producers can make investments,” Tom Enlow, CEO of UniSea — a pollock, cod and crab processing plant in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, which is owned by Japan’s Nippon Suisan Kaisha (Nissui) — told Undercurrent.

The speed of the price increase has been driven by new markets taking the fish, he said.

“When the prices were very low, the producers looked at new markets. There has been more focus on deepskin for Asia and also surimi. Demand for surimi has been very strong, due to the shortfall in warmwater surimi,” the Nissui executive said. “The shortage in warmwater is the reason Thailand is so hot at the moment for surimi. Also, Japan is stable, but they take almost half of the surimi the US produces.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Ongoing China-U.S. Trade War Likely to Bring Changes to Global Seafood Industry

November 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Chinese seafood exports to America have grown this year, despite the trade war. However, the trade war with the U.S. could have global impacts, writer Amy Zhong reports from China.

Chinese seafood exports to the U.S. were US $3.22 billion during 2017, while the exports have risen by 5.75 percent to reach US $2.161 billion within the first eight months of this year compared with the same period last year. But things are starting to shift. The U.S. used to be the largest market for Chinese tilapia, but not any more.

Against this backdrop, a seafood processing seminar was hosted in Dalian in October and participants gathered to talk about issues like global seafood trading and brand building.

China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 created great opportunities for its aquatic processing industry but it has begun to shift attention to the domestic market with the recession of foreign markets, trade conflicts and increasingly great domestic demand. Thus, the Dalian seminar was of great importance in areas such as opportunities and threats the aquatic industry encounters in domestic and foreign markets.

The country used to rely on foreign buyers in its seafood sales from 1981 to 2005, Cui He, the president for China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance, was quoted as saying in a recent FishFirst article. Its export ballooned from 2005 to 2013, while its imports also grew between 2013 and 2017. The country’s seafood trading volume exceeded 10 million tons in 2017, which makes it a market larger than any other in the world, according to the story. That means an increasing number of aquatic suppliers have placed more importance on this market with great potential thanks to its steady export opportunities and rapid import increase. Countries like Norway, Canada and Australia have said in the past that China is the main target in their seafood promotions.

Japan, the U.S. and Europe are the three main buyers of China’s seafood, according to the country’s statistics, while other important buyers include South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Japan ranks first among all of China’s seafood buyers while the U.S. also is significant, buying a lot of China’s white shrimp and tilapia.

Although there seems to be no drastic change to the global seafood market at present, China has played a role of great importance in the processing industry. The trade war does take a toll on some export-oriented seafood companies in Dalian and Qingdao, but it also pushes them to upgrade their systems. In short, more seafood trading stimulates the development of China’s seafood processing sector.

China’s statistics have shown a reduction in China’s reliance on U.S. seafood buyers since 2014. The U.S. anti-dumping policies on shrimp and catfish have influenced China’s processors since the mid-2000s. Lately, the two countries have become competitors in sourcing such seafood as Ecuador’s white shrimp after 2014, with Ecuador selling more white shrimp to China recently. China also has purchased more basa from Vietnam than the U.S. as well.

Recently, the U.S. has removed cod, pink salmon and pollock from its import list that are subject to higher tariffs. Cod has been delivered to China for further processing before being re-exported to Europe, the article said. At the same time, tariffs are having less effect on China’s seafood purchases from the U.S. than its sales to the U.S. Tilapia sales have hurt the most: The U.S. was once the largest buyer, but due to the trade war, it is now looking to other countries for substitutes.

SeafoodNews reporter Amy Zhong also writes that Chinese trade journals say that the U.S.-China trade war could also change the global seafood industry. Seafood businesses worldwide are uncertain whether China can maintain its status as the seafood processing center, since some companies have been forced to relocate to other regions, like Africa. However, China has begun developing business in more countries included in its One Belt, One Road initiative, which in turn has encouraged China to upgrade its seafood industry.

Wang Zhanlu, the director for WTO Division of Agricultural Trade Promotion Center, was quoted as saying countries usually control the agricultural trade more strictly with higher tariffs, but China is comparatively open and is second only to the U.S. in terms of its agricultural imports. In 2017, seafood ranks first in the country’s agricultural exports and accounts for 27 percent of the country’s agricultural export total. Meanwhile, seafood imports account for about 17 percent of its imports.

Zhong writes that according to seafood trade expert Leng Chuanhui, Japan consumes about 8.4 million tons of seafood every year, while it produces around 4.7 million tons on its own. Most of Japan’s seafood are wild harvests, while some are raised in fresh- or saltwater aquaculture. The country buys about 3.7 million tons of seafood from other countries, while its main export markets are Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, while 14.2 percent of its seafood import is from China.

Professor Qin from Guangdong Ocean University was quoted as saying that oysters have also become more popular in China. Global production was only 5.32 million tons worldwide in 2017, while the trading volume was about 70,000 tons. But China’s production rose by 4.7 percent in 2017 compared with that of 2016 to reach 4.87 million tons. Its oyster market value grew by 25 percent to reach 25.4 billion yuan (~$3.7 billion USD) that year. Most of the Fujian, Guangdong and Shandong oysters are currently destined for barbecues, but likely will be more finely processed in the future.

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

 

Major Chinese fish oil producer and exporter Shandong Yuwang Pharmaceutical approved Friend of the Sea

November 19, 2018 — The following was released by Friend of the Sea:

Chinese manufacturer Shandong Yuwang Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. has obtained Friend of the Sea certification for refined fish oil and softgel from Engraulis rigens sourced from FAO Area 87 (Southeast Pacific).

Friend of the Sea’s standard for sustainable fish oil and Omega-3 certifies that the oil originates only from fisheries that are compliant with Friend of the Sea’s sustainable fishing requirements, including good fishery management, selective fishing gears and social responsibility, and that a full chain of custody is in place throughout the supply and production chain.

Shandong Yuwang Pharmaceutical Co. Ldt., which processes 20000 tons of crude fish oil and produces 10000 tons of refined fish oil, is one of the largest world’s manufacturer of refined fish oil. While being exported to America and Europe, the finished fish oil also guarantees material supply of stringent standard’s fish oil preparation and products for Yuwang itself.

“We decided to join the Friend of the Sea project because we are eager to give our contribution in conserving the marine habitats and protecting them for future generations,” claims Albert Ho, Business Manager at Shandong Yuwang Pharmaceutical.

“The approval of Shandong Yuwang Pharmaceutical as a Friend of the Sea certified company consolidates the presence of our certification in China and is the confirmation that more and more fish oil manufacturers are committed towards environmental sustainability” comments Paolo Bray, Founder and Director of Friend of the Sea.

Could Oysters Ease Trade Tensions With U.S.? European Leaders Hope So

November 14, 2018 — BRUSSELS — The United States and Europe may one day put aside their differences on trade, eliminate tariffs on industrial goods and work together to rein in their common economic adversary, China.

But for Cecilia Malmstrom, the European trade commissioner, the most urgent task is to produce quick results, however humble, that will keep an impatient President Trump from imposing even more drastic penalties on European imports than the tariffs his administration has already levied.

So when Ms. Malmstrom meets in Washington on Wednesday with her American counterpart, Robert E. Lighthizer, she will count it as a substantial victory if she can lower the barriers hindering one bit of trans-Atlantic commerce: oysters.

The United States and Europe have long banned the importing of each other’s shellfish. But a deal to ease trade on that front has been in the works for several years and could be dressed up by both sides as a success that helps smooth relations with the White House.

Shellfish may seem like an odd focus for negotiators, but exports from the United States are worth about $1.7 billion a year. And international trade in clams, mussels, oysters and scallops — all of which are shipped live by air — is growing.

The emphasis on mollusks also illustrates a strategy that officials in Brussels hope will prevent Mr. Trump from acting on a threat to impose steep tariffs on European cars, a potentially devastating blow to the European economy.

Read the full story at The New York Times

 

Even Lobsters Can’t Escape Trump’s Trade War

November 7, 2018 — In his cargo shorts and T-shirt, Mark Barlow looked anything but an international trade warrior. Yet a few weeks ago, when he slid open the door to his low-slung warehouse in a scrappy industrial lot to reveal concrete tanks filled with 375,000 gallons of 40-degree water and a fortune in live Maine lobsters, he might as well have been leading a battlefield tour.

Since the 1990s, Barlow has built his company, Island Seafood, into a $50 million-a-year business by shipping live lobsters around the world. He exported one out of every five to China until recently. A lobster plucked from a trap in Maine’s frigid waters—home to North America’s richest fishery—could surface on a dinner plate in Beijing two days later. The first months of 2018 were the best start in Island Seafood’s history, says Barlow, who this year expected to ship a million pounds of lobster to Shanghai, Guangzhou, and other Chinese cities, where he’s built relationships for a decade. Then, as Barlow, a 57-year-old bear of a man who speaks like someone who’s spent years negotiating on the docks, puts it: “The orangutan in Washington woke up from a nap and decided to put tariffs on China,” and “the Chinese stopped buying immediately.”

If you want to understand the modern global economy, the implications of climate change, and the unintended consequences of President Trump’s trade wars, then you ought to “consider the lobster.” The writer David Foster Wallace’s 2004 essay of that name riffed on the history (“Up until sometime in the 1800s … lobster was literally low-class food, eaten only by the poor and institutionalized”) and morality (“It’s not just that lobsters get boiled alive, it’s that you do it yourself”) of our love affair with Homarus americanus. To consider the lobster now, almost 15 years later, is to study crustacean economics just as U.S.-China trade tensions reach a roiling boil.

As Trump has rewritten America’s economic relationships, some of the country’s most prized exports—Kentucky bourbon, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Midwestern soybeans—have become retaliatory targets for China and the European Union. For its part, Beijing began imposing a 25 percent tariff on a long list of imports from the U.S., including live lobsters, on July 6. “The second this happened, I said to my sales team, ‘China’s dead,’ ” Barlow says. Correspondence with his Chinese customers confirmed his hunch. “I don’t think there is [a] way to import U.S. lobster,” one buyer texted.

Read the full story at Bloomberg Businessweek

Industry launch large-scale squid project at China Fisheries Expo

November 7, 2018 — The following was released by Ocean Outcomes:

Four leading seafood buyers, Chinese seafood industry groups, retailers, fishermen, and sustainable seafood enterprises came together today at the China Fisheries and Seafood Expo to celebrate the much anticipated launch of the East China Sea and Yellow Sea Squid FIP.

The fisheries improvement project—or FIP for short—is a precompetitive project aimed to improve the management and fishing practices of Chinese trawl, purse seine, and gillnet vessels targeting Japanese flying squid. JFS are one of the most commercially lucrative species of squid, and in the Chinese side of East China Sea and Yellow Sea alone, annual production can approach 30,000 metric tons.

“Squids are one of the most loved seafoods, but compared with many species, squid sustainability efforts are lagging,” said Songlin Wang who is leading the project. “Given squid account for about 5% of global fishery landings, it’s encouraging to see that change.”

In the East China and Yellow Seas, China has important domestic fisheries which target migratory JFS stocks. These supply both a booming domestic market and are exported to the Europe Union, United Kingdom, United States, Japan, and South Korea, among many others, by global seafood companies such as those involved in the project.

However, JFS fishing practices and management need improvement in a number of ways to ensure a continued supply of squid products. For example, China lacks a JFS-specific harvest strategy outside of a summer fishing moratorium banning the use of motorized fishing vessels, and it’s difficult to verify the exact catch locations for some squid products from the region.

“Around a third to half of all squid passes through a Chinese seafood supply chain, whether caught, processed, traded, or consumed,” said Dr. He Cui, who heads CAPPMA, a Chinese national seafood industry group with thousands of members. “Given CAPPMA’s commitment to both domestic and global seafood sustainability, it’s in our interest to ensure a future where all squid stocks are healthy. This project will help us explore a path forward.”

The FIP will work to address areas of concern through implementation of a five year improvement work plan designed, in part, to establish science-based stock assessments and bycatch monitoring protocols, harvest rules fit to JFS 1-year lifecycles, and traceability systems to verify and track locations of harvest.

Since its inception, the FIP has grown beyond founding members Ocean Outcomes, Sea Farms, and PanaPesca to include support from a number of industry stakeholders, including, Quirch Foods, Seachill, China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance (CAPPMA), Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and local Chinese suppliers Genho, IG and the Zhejiang Industry Group.

The success and growth of the project were due, in part, to the collaborative forum of the Global Squid Supply Chain Roundtable, facilitated by Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, which heavily featured the East China Sea and Yellow Sea Squid FIP in recent meetings at the North America Seafood Expo in Boston, MA.

“We couldn’t have envisioned the enthusiasm and support for this work when this project began three years ago,” said Dick Jones, who has been working to improve seafood industry practices for decades. “Precompetitive industry collaboration is key to ensuring durable and positive change. This project demonstrates that message is catching on.”

US refuses entry of invasive Chinese crab

November 2, 2018 — The United States government refused entry of hundreds of pounds of invasive Chinese mitten crabs in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A., earlier this month.

While conducting a routine inspection of incoming Chinese freight at a local express consignment facility, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agricultural specialists noted x-ray anomalies in 16 shipments, which were labeled as clothing.

They discovered thousands of live Chinese mitten crabs, destined for residences in New York.

Read the full article at Seafood Source

National Fisherman: Tax to Grind

November 2, 2018 — Everyone is talking tariffs. First it was anticipation, and now we’re in reality check, keeping an eye on the long-term consequences.

My first instinct with the tariffs was to gather information and watch what happens. There’s no denying our federal government is in fickle hands. The tariffs could have been canceled as easily and swiftly as they were declared. So wait and see seemed the best course of action.

Of course, I’m not a fisherman, processor or retailer. Wait and see is a luxury for me. And now it’s also a luxury for the purveyors of many itemized seafood products that have been granted dispensation from the tariffs.

As the deadline inched closer this summer, fisheries with decent lobbying power began to appeal to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to get a pass for their product — meaning the United States would not add a tariff to those products being sold into Chinese markets (most of which are already taxed as exports). In the case of U.S. seafood products being processed in China and reimported to the U.S. market, the government also granted a waiver on Chinese import taxes for some products.

The result was good for many stakeholders — they got the pass they need to stay competitive. But fisheries that don’t have access to Capitol Hill are left out there alone to bear the brunt of the tariffs on their own. They are now the guinea pigs for the whole industry.

Read the full editorial at National Fisherman

 

ALASKA: Alaska gubernatorial hopefuls Dunleavy, Begich square off in fish survey

November 1, 2018 — If Republican candidate Mike Dunleavy wins his bid to become the next governor of Alaska on Tuesday, look for an all-out effort by the state to expand its seafood export markets but not a direct challenge of president Donald Trump’s tough trade policies.

“A governor of one state clearly doesn’t set trade policy for the nation,” he said in one of several responses to a survey on commercial fishing organized by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce.

Democratic candidate Mark Begich, meanwhile, would bring together a bipartisan group of governors from other states to pressure the federal government into changing course.

“As governor, I won’t sit on the sidelines when national policies hurt Alaska, like Trump’s trade war with China,” he said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Alaska seafood leaders talk tariffs, competition from Russia and Canada

October 31, 2018 — Mark Begich, Alaska’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, made a cameo at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s All Hands on Deck meeting in Anchorage this week.

“If you want to be successful, you’ve got to put money behind it and market the product,” Begich said in support of the ASMI mission during opening remarks on Monday, Oct. 29.

Despite the too-close-to-call governor’s race, tariffs are the leading topic at the meeting this week.

Alaska’s seafood industry enjoyed a record export total in 2017 of more than 1 billion pounds of seafood with expectations that the trend would continue. However, the complex matrix of Alaska seafood’s global markets and international processing was further complicated by the implementation of several new layers of export and import tariffs on varying products.

Alaska’s proximity to China has long allowed a significant portion of the head and gut fleets’ harvest to be exported to China for final processing and reimportation to the domestic market.

Read the full story at National Fisherman