Saving Seafood

Glenn Cooke: “It’s time for suppliers and producers to totally cut Russia off”

March 17, 2022 — Glenn Cooke is the CEO of Cooke Inc., a vertically integrated family of seafood companies based in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, Canada. He spoke to SeafoodSource on Tuesday, 15 March, at the 2022 Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

SeafoodSource: What have been Cooke’s big moves over the past few months?

Cooke: We’re always investing in our operations globally and we just launched a vessel for Argentine red shrimp fishery with the capability to do frozen-at-sea product, which is quite exciting, as we’ll be in this year’s fishery there. It’s a state-of-the-art vessel. We’re in the process of finalizing a new USD 45 million (EUR 40.5 million) plant in St. George, New Brunswick for salmon added-value processing that will be very robotized, automatic, and cut down our labor costs, which we have do because of a shortage of [workers]. The facility that’s there will be replaced by a brand-new facility and the one that’s there will be redone into a secondary value-added processing center. And we have a new smolt unit almost ready to be finalized as well in New Brunswick. Around the world, we are expanding our operations – we’re always investing heavily globally and we’ll continue to do that.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Cooke appoints Michael Szemerda as Global Chief Sustainability Officer

February 2, 2022 — The following was released by Cooke Inc.:

Cooke Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Michael Szemerda as Global Chief Sustainability Officer. 

“Cooke’s core purpose is ‘To cultivate the ocean with care, nourish the world, provide for our families, and build stronger communities’ and our approach to sustainability is central to this,” says Szemerda, who has been with Cooke for 30 years and works as the Vice President of Saltwater Operations for Cooke Aquaculture’s North American Operations. “Across all our subsidiary companies, we are fortunate to have some of the best and brightest minds in wild fisheries and aquaculture working to innovate and implement practices using sound science and advanced technologies to ensure our seafood is sustainable. I’m excited to unify these efforts and continue this important work with our colleagues around the globe.” In this newly established role, Szemerda will oversee all environmental programs and regulatory programs, industry certifications, and sustainability initiatives across Cooke’s global wild and farmed subsidiaries.  

“Michael has shown great leadership throughout his career with Cooke, and he has vast experience with all of Cooke’s saltwater operations around the globe,” says Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Inc. “We’re thrilled that he has accepted this role at such a pivotal time of growth for our company. We know his experience with our operations, and knowledge of the seafood industry will help us in our commitment to protecting and enhancing the marine environments we work in.”  

Cooke is proud to offer True North Seafood products that meet a variety of certifications and recommendations to support sustainability. The Cooke family of companies ships one billion pounds of seafood annually through harvesting 30% wild species (wild salmon, whitefish, and shellfish) and 70% farmed species (Atlantic salmon, steelhead trout, white Pacific shrimp, sea bass, and sea bream).

Read the release here

 

Video: Cooke subsidiary Omega Protein sinks vessel to create artificial reef

June 18, 2021 — The Defender, a decommissioned vessel previously operated on behalf of Canadian giant Cooke Inc.’s harvesting and fishmeal processing subsidiary Omega Protein, was sunk last week off the coast of Louisiana, Accesswire reported.

The vessel will serve as an artificial reef for the benefit of the Gulf’s diverse marine eco-system, the company said.

The aim of the sinking is for the vessel to become a marine habitat, promoting biodiversity and creating recreational fishing and diving opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico.

Omega Protein has a track record of working with state agencies and non-profit organizations to offer decommissioned vessels to artificial reef programs.

The Defender, previously owned by Ocean Harvesters and operated on behalf of Omega Protein, was donated to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) under its its artificial reef initiative.

Read the full story at IntraFish

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford seafood giant Cooke buys insolvent U.S. fish processor, expands global reach

October 29, 2020 — A division of New Brunswick seafood giant Cooke Inc. has acquired Mariner Seafood LLC of New Bedford, Mass., expanding the family-owned company’s operations in the United States.

True North Seafood, the flagship brand and processing arm of Cooke, purchased Mariner Seafood for US$2.75 million after the U.S. company filed for bankruptcy protection last month. The sale was approved by a Massachusetts court Monday.

The sale includes two processing plants in the port of New Bedford capable of processing more than 8,000 tonnes a year of seafood product, including scallops, haddock, cod, salmon and shrimp.

Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke, said it has been a dream of the family seafood company to have a presence in the historic, high-value fishing port.

“We now have over 4,000 Cooke employees in 22 U.S. states and we will continue to invest and grow our New Bedford processing operations,” he said in a statement.

Cooke, which started in rural New Brunswick in 1985 with three employees, now has a global workforce of more than 10,000 employees in 10 countries. It claims to be the largest privately held family seafood company in the world.

Read the full story at the Preeceville Progress

Cooke-owned Omega Protein calls 10% cut in menhaden fishing quota ‘not unreasonable’

October 22, 2020 — Cooke-owned Omega Protein in Virginia said the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) decision on Tuesday to cut the US Atlantic coast menhaden quota by 10 percent “is not an unreasonable step.”

ASMFC voted 13 to 5 to cut the quota to 194,400 metric tons for the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

In response to the reduced catch limit, Omega released a statement saying the company “recognizes the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s decision to reduce the coastwide [harvest] by 10 percent, while not preferred, is not an unreasonable step toward moving to ecological management of this species,” reported the Chesapeake Bay Magazine.

Read the full story at IntraFish

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

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

Cooke gets draft revised permits for steelhead trout farms from Washington’s Department of Ecology

September 11, 2020 — Cooke Aquaculture Pacific has received drafted revised water quality permits from Washington’s Department of Ecology, another step forward in its effort to shift from farming Atlantic salmon to steelhead trout in its net-pens in Puget Sound.

Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, Canada-based Cooke has already received a five-year permit from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WSDFW) to farm steelhead trout in at one site near Hope Island in Skagit Bay and three net-pen in Rich Passage.

Read the full story at Seafood Source