Saving Seafood

Glenn Cooke, Ian Smith offer timeline for COVID-19 foodservice recovery

February 9, 2021 — The global COVID-19 pandemic has been a mixed bag for the seafood industry, with retailers notching record seafood sales and the category as a whole seeing gains, even as the foodservice industry virtually collapsed.

That downturn is expected to change direction this year, with foodservice operators optimistic about 2021. Seafood company CEOs and advisors, speaking during the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference’s economic outlook panel, also expressed optimism about the industry’s recovery. While in the short-term the rebound may be slight, as trend experts have predicted, once relative normalcy returns demand could see a big boost.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Cooke Aquaculture gets key permits for steelhead transition in Washington

January 7, 2021 — Washington’s Department of Ecology has revised four water quality permits to Cooke Aquaculture to farm steelhead in net-pens it formerly used to raise Atlantic salmon.

Cooke had already received approval from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, though conservation groups have sued to block their issuance. The facilities are located near Bainbridge Island and La Conner, and are now permitted for steelhead, also known as rainbow trout.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

High Court Finds Aquaculture Worker Covered by Workers’ Comp

December 31, 2020 — An aquaculture worker who got hurt tending to salmon raised in offshore pens is covered under state law, but not under the federal law that defines some of the rights for mariners, Maine‘s supreme court ruled.

The court ruled unanimously on Tuesday in a Workers’ Compensation Board appellate division decision involving a woman who was injured while working for Cooke Aquaculture’s salmon operation off the coast of Eastport.

The woman, Darla Potter, slipped and hurt her knee while caring for salmon, which were raised in cages located less than a mile offshore.

Great Falls Insurance Company contended that the Workers’ Compensation Board lacked jurisdiction because Potter should be considered to be a “seaman” under federal admiralty law known as the Jones Act.

The Supreme Judicial Court said the closest analogy to an aquaculture operation is an offshore oil platform, and it noted that oil platform workers have never been found to fall under the Jones Act jurisdiction.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

Fight over Cooke’s steelhead permits in Puget Sound headed to Washington Supreme Court

November 27, 2020 — Earlier this month, conservation groups lost a lawsuit to block Cooke Aquaculture from raising domesticated steelhead in net-pens in Washington’s Puget Sound, but the groups announced on 23 November they will file a second appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.

In January, authorities from Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) granted Cooke a five-year permit to farm steelhead in Puget Sound, and received water quality permits from the state’s Department of Ecology in September. A month later, a coalition of environmental groups, led by the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC), filed a lawsuit claiming the permitting process was incomplete.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NWAA fires back at Patagonia’s anti net-pen aquaculture video

October 27, 2020 — The Northwest Aquaculture Alliance (NWAA) has pushed back against a video by clothing company Patagonia titled “Take Back Puget Sound,” which focuses on net-pen aquaculture.

The new video focuses specially on Washington state, and opens with footage of a net-pen collapse suffered by Cooke Aquaculture, with speakers involved calling net-pen aquaculture “a dirty industry.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Seafood Source’s Top 25 For Sustainability: Q&A With Cooke Inc.

October 13, 2020 — Cooke Inc. is featured in The Top 25: Sustainability & Conservation list, published by SeafoodSource on 24 September, 2020. Cooke Vice President of Public Relations Joel Richardson speaks here on behalf of the company.

SeafoodSource: What kind of trends have informed Cooke’s latest sustainability/conservation efforts?

Richardson: ESG REPORTING: We recognize that a rapidly growing proportion of consumers are driving the importance of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting, as they increasingly look to align themselves with products and companies they trust are transparent in their business practices and serve a greater social purpose.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

COOKE NAMED AS A TOP SEAFOOD SUPPLIER IN NORTH AMERICA FOR SUSTAINABILITY & CONSERVATION

September 29, 2020 — The following was released by Cooke Seafood:

Cooke Inc. is very pleased to announce they have been named by SeafoodSource.com as one of the Top 25 Seafood Suppliers in North America for Sustainability & Conservation.

The Top 25 list features North American seafood companies demonstrating efforts and advancements as it relates to sustainability and conservation. The chosen companies have proven to be leaders in transforming the industry to become more sustainably minded and validated their commitment to protecting the environment within their business practice.

“In addition to our best practices and environmental certifications, being recognized as one of the top among some of the best in class seafood producers provides assurance to our customers that our True North Seafood products come from a sustainable, responsibly harvested resource,” says Joel Richardson, Vice President of Public Relations, Cooke Inc. “We are committed to maintaining and improving the health of our oceans and coastal communities as one of our guiding principles while producing fresh, quality seafood.”

SeafoodSource.com is a division of Diversified Communications, based in Portland, Maine, USA, a leading international media company providing market access, education and information through global, national and regional face-to-face events, digital products, and publications. The company’s global seafood portfolio of expositions and media includes Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America, Seafood Expo Global/Seafood Processing Global, Seafood Expo Asia and SeafoodSource.com. They also produced the SeaWeb Seafood Summit, the world’s premier seafood conference on sustainability.

To compile the 2020 list, the SeafoodSource editorial team conducted an extensive nomination and analysis process involving the consultation of a panel of outside experts renowned in the seafood sustainability community. SeafoodSource also accounted for leadership, industry accolades and recognition, pioneering initiatives, partnerships, and industry engagement. The resulting list catalogues best practices for driving the industry onward and upward, providing valuable insight into the inner workings of some of seafood’s most promising and prominent sustainability trailblazers.

“We hold our relationship with our marine environment very seriously,” adds Richardson. “These areas provide livelihoods for the communities in which our people live and work and where we co-exist with the natural world.”

Cooke’s commitment to sustainability, science-based marine practices, and forward-thinking innovation has afforded them many certifications and recognition in recent years. Cooke Aquaculture was recognized as a 2020 winner of the Canada’s Best Managed Companies Platinum Club designation for the 15th consecutive year. Winners are amongst the best-in-class of Canadian owned and managed companies demonstrating strategy, capability, and commitment to achieve sustainable growth.

“The Top 25: Seafood Sustainability & Conservation” list is available here: https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/environment-sustainability/the-top-25-seafood-sustainability-conservation

The Top 25: Seafood Sustainability & Conservation

September 25, 2020 — There’s no way around it – 2020 so far has been a year wrought with difficult news and stark changes. A global pandemic has kept most of us apart. It’s made the future harder to imagine. Nevertheless, much of the seafood industry persists in its efforts to stay the course, feeding communities in a time of great need. We hope this year’s Top 25 list similarly nourishes your news feed with something good.

From 1999 to 2018, the editorial team of SeafoodSource and its previous incarnation, SeaFood Business magazine, worked tirelessly to produce a list of the leading North American seafood suppliers based on reported sales figures. Last year, we revamped our process, bringing you a new type of compilation celebrating the Top 25 seafood product innovations that have transformed the North American industry. In 2020, we have once again reshuffled the deck.

Cooke Inc.

It all began in 1985 with one family, one farm, and 5,000 salmon. Thirty-five years later, vertically-integrated corporation Cooke Aquaculture, headquartered in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, Canada, and a collective of other Cooke family companies together comprise one of the world’s largest seafood enterprises.

A business of such magnitude approaches sustainable development in a variety of ways. For instance, when it comes to certifying its True North Seafood products, Cooke has earned vetting from an array of third-party providers of some of the industry’s most stringent standards, including: the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP), BRCGS Global Standards, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Alaska Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM), the International Featured Standards (IFS), Soil Association Organic, Kosher, GLOBAL G.A.P. Aquaculture Standard, Label Rouge, Friend of the Sea, Crianza de Nuestros Mares (“Breeding from our seas”), ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, Halal, and Ocean Wise.

Read the full list and descriptions at Seafood Source

New Bedford’s Mariner Seafood files Chapter 11, True North aims for stalking horse bid

September 14, 2020 — New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Mariner Seafood filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, 14 September, with Cooke Aquaculture’s True North Seafood lined up as the stalking horse bidder for its assets.

Court documents filed by Mariner Seafood acknowledge the company defaulted on its revolving USD 10 million (EUR 8.4 million) loan from Wells Fargo, and that the company had been exploring options such as selling assets or facilitating an equity investment to improve its cashflow and repay its debt.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Regulators say Cooke’s Washington trout farming plans unlikely to impact water quality

September 14, 2020 — The C announced this week it will be holding public hearings on Cooke’s draft permits to switch from farming Atlantic salmon to rainbow trout for four existing netpens in the state.

The permits are for Cooke’s Clam Bay, Fort Ward, Orchard Rocks and Hope Island netpens.

Washington state has already held one public comment period where citizens were able to review Cooke’s permit applications to switch species.

“We considered all comments, then evaluated the water quality impacts around the change in species, and developed updated draft permits,” Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Aquaculture Specialist and Permit Coordinator Laurie Niewolny told IntraFish.

Read the full story at IntraFish