Saving Seafood

Fishery Management Councils to Meet May 27-28 by Teleconference

May 21, 2020 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

Leadership teams from the nation’s eight regional fishery management councils will convene by teleconference for the spring 2020 Council Coordination Committee (CCC) meeting. The CCC is comprised of the chairs, vice chairs and executive directors of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Mid-Atlantic, New England, North Pacific, Pacific, South Atlantic and Western Pacific Fishery Management Councils. CCC chairmanship rotates annually among the eight Councils, which have authority over fisheries seaward of state waters in the US exclusive economic zone.

The committee meets twice each year with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to discuss issues relevant to all fishery management councils. The Western Pacific Council is serving as this year’s CCC chair and will be hosting this year’s first meeting on May 27 and 28. The meeting will be held by teleconference due to COVID-19 travel and quarantine restrictions.  The public is welcome to participate.

Agenda items will be discussed between 7:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. (Hawai‘i standard time) each day. Among the scheduled topics are the following:

 

  • COVID-19 effects on Council operations and NMFS rulemaking
  • CARES Act $300M stimulus package for fisheries and aquaculture
  • President’s Executive Order 13921 on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth
  • NMFS updates on priorities, policy directives, technical guidance, bycatch initiatives, etc.
  • Legislative issues
  • CCC Scientific Subcommittee and Habitat Working Group reports

The complete agendas and conference call-in instructions will be posted at http://www.fisherycouncils.org/ccc-meetings/may-2020.

The meeting notice is available at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-05-11/pdf/2020-10023.pdf.

 

Americans Are Cooking More Seafood, but Fishermen Are Struggling

May 21, 2020 — The coronavirus crisis is hitting seafood businesses even harder than the meat industry, prompting fishermen and processors to overhaul their operations and look for new customers.

U.S. supermarket shoppers are buying more fish and shellfish to prepare at home during quarantine, but business owners say the rise isn’t enough to offset the loss of sales to restaurants, where 70% of seafood is consumed, according to market-research firm Urner Barry.

Some companies are also contending with coronavirus outbreaks among workers. Blue Harvest Fisheries, a fishing and processing company in Massachusetts, closed its plant for three days in April after two workers tested positive for Covid-19. The closure cost Blue Harvest $200,000, said CEO Keith Decker, who said he is also paying hourly workers an extra $1 an hour and has added costly fogging and deep-cleaning procedures at the plant each day. At the same time, he said, production is down 25% because of reduced seafood demand and worker absenteeism.

“It’s a tightrope I’m walking,” Mr. Decker said.

In Alaska, which makes up 60% of the nation’s catch, according to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, seafood companies are spending millions to prevent infection among the armies of workers they bring to the state each year. Executives say virus cases there could hobble operations and devastate remote villages.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

Trident Seafoods’ Boss Charts Safer Course for Alaska Fishing Season

May 21, 2020 — Joe Bundrant runs one of the world’s largest seafood companies. He knows that without healthy fishermen there will be no catch in the bountiful waters off Alaska’s coast.

Mr. Bundrant, the 54-year-old chief executive of Trident Seafoods, has enforced a strict quarantine to protect people and keep business going during the critical summer fishing season. The pandemic could wreak havoc on the Last Frontier, and Mr. Bundrant wants to avoid a repeat of the 1918 pandemic that decimated Alaska’s remote communities.

“If I’m going to put 145 people on a ship, including my son, and ask them not to get off the ship for six months, this is my only choice,” Mr. Bundrant said.

The $10 million effort includes isolating hundreds of workers for two weeks before sending them to sea and remote fishing villages, their rooms monitored by quarantined guards. On day 15, if they have tested negative for the virus, they are ushered by quarantined drivers to ships or private airplanes to begin a six-month fishing season in some of the world’s most remote waters.

There are consequences for those who refuse to play along. The six workers who tried to leave quarantine were fired.

Trident is the largest U.S. seafood company, employing 5,000 during the peak fishing season in Alaska. The state’s fishing industry catches 60% of the seafood in the U.S., including salmon, cod, halibut, rock fish and herring.

The fishing industry is seasonal, presenting a challenge for a company trying to prevent the spread of a virus in an industry considered among the most hazardous in the U.S.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

FLORIDA: Gulf Coast Seafood Alliance Members Get Back to Work With Focus on Safety and Service During the COVID-19 Pandemic

May 21, 2020 — The following was released by the Gulf Coast Seafood Alliance:

Florida members of the Gulf Coast Seafood Alliance (GCSA), an alliance of restaurants, hotels, fishermen, and seafood dealers tied to the Gulf of Mexico’s fishing economy, are beginning to safely reopen their businesses, prioritizing preventing the spread of COVID-19 and supporting those affected by the pandemic. Members are adhering to Florida’s reopening guidelines, which require restaurants to restrict indoor seating to 50 percent capacity and to space all dining groups at least six feet apart.

GCSA member Dewey Destin, the owner of two seafood restaurants in Destin, Florida, and a third in Navarre, Florida, first reopened his restaurants on May 4, saying he is comfortable with reopening “as long as it is done in a safe manner.” Mr. Destin made clear that his top priority is the health and safety of his staff and customers. To that end, all of his restaurant staff are required to wear masks, wash their hands every half hour, and have their temperature taken every day. His staff are also sanitizing condiment containers and menus between each use, and marking the floor near bathrooms to keep people properly socially distanced in line.

Fishermen are still working, but prices are 30 to 40 percent lower than they were before the COVID-19 closures. To reopen his restaurants, Mr. Destin sourced grouper, snapper, oysters, blue crab and shrimp from local Gulf Coast dealers.

“This is obviously a very tough market for seafood producers,” Mr. Destin said. “We’re trying to do our part to help local fishermen continue the essential work of providing Americans with fresh, healthy seafood.”

Read the full release here

Alaskan Salmon Industry Faces Off Against COVID-19

May 20, 2020 — Rich in omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin D, and antioxidants, sockeye is health food for your heart, brain, eyes, and skin. And given the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s careful management of the fishery, it’s a sustainable resource. In 2018, according to the ADFG, 63 million sockeye returned, and a record 41.9 million of them were netted. Bristol Bay is, by far, the world’s largest sockeye fishery, and the biggest salmon fishery in Alaska. It is a well-tended natural bounty valued at more than $1 billion. Along with the other salmon fisheries in Bristol Bay, it returns an annual $14.7 million to local governments and employs a third of the residents in the largely indigenous communities. Norman Van Vactor, President and CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation (BBEDC), estimates that, all totaled, salmon fishing brings up to $200 million into the region each year.

There are many reasons to feel good about eating Bristol Bay sockeye, but this is 2020, a year that has complicated everything in food. While subsistence salmon fishing is essential to the region’s 6,700 residents, the commercial fishery is operated primarily by outsiders. As of now, there are less than 400 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across Alaska. But as 13,000 fishermen, processors, and other workers from around the world arrive in May for Bristol Bay’s season, which begins in early June, they bring the danger of spreading the virus to isolated communities with few medical resources.

For the locals of Bristol Bay, the possibility of an outbreak engenders a horrifying dèjá vu. “Our people keep saying that we went through this already,” says Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a consortium of 15 Yup’ik, Den’ina, and Alutiiq tribes representing 80 percent of the region’s inhabitants. She’s referring to the Spanish flu, which arrived in Bristol Bay in 1919, possibly on a cannery ship, and decimated the native population. “A lot of us are descendents. So for native people, the devastation of a pandemic is not an obscure concept,” she said. “We are the people raised by the orphans who survived.”

Read the full story at Food & Wine

PA Receives $3.3 million in CARES Act Funding for Fisheries Support

May 20, 2020 — Pennsylvania is one of the beneficiaries of the Commerce Department’s allocation of $300 million in CARES Act funding to support marine fisheries and states that have “direct and indirect” commerce with that industry.

Receiving approximately $3.3 million, Pennsylvania will be directed to use the funding for support of businesses within fishery industry, including “Tribes, commercial fishing businesses, charter/for-hire fishing businesses, qualified aquaculture operations, processors, and other” fishery businesses. Not included are “vessel repair businesses, restaurants, or seafood retailers.” New Jersey receives $11.3 million.

Read the full story at WLVT

FLORIDA: Agricultural and marine industries take hit from COVID-19, says UF/IFAS survey

May 20, 2020 — New numbers show agricultural and marine industries are taking a huge hit from the coronavirus pandemic.

The University of Florida and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences held a virtual news conference Tuesday to reveal the findings of a month-long survey conducted with members of the agricultural and marine industries in Florida.

Almost every marine industry lost revenue according to the survey’s results. Andrew Ropicki, an assistant professor specializing in marine resource economics, noticed that despite this decrease, some businesses relatively fared better.

Read the full story at WCJB

NFI Statement on FDA/USDA Food Safety MOU

May 20, 2020 — The following was released by the National Fisheries Institute:

The National Fisheries Institute is pleased to see the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Agriculture Department (USDA) working together to ensure continued food safety during the COVID19 pandemic.

Recognizing that the FDA draws its jurisdiction from the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the USDA regulates via the Federal Meat Inspection Act, it is more important than ever to have these vital agencies communicating and collaborating.  While seafood remains available at grocers and restaurants, we thank the Administration for planning ahead.

NFI members are taking the needed steps to keep our essential workers safe and continuing to provide consumers with healthy seafood. This memorandum of understanding will benefit frontline food safety and help avoid interruptions that might unnecessarily disrupt seafood production.

Trump administration renews push for expanding U.S. aquaculture

May 19, 2020 — Giving pandemic relief funds to the seafood industry and stepping on the gas for offshore fish farming are two big takeaways from the executive orders and congressional packages coming out of the nation’s capital.

Recent news that Alaska would receive $50 million from the $300 million fisheries relief funds in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was well received by industry stakeholders and it’s likely to be followed by more.

A May 15 hearing called “COVID 19 impacts to American Fisheries and the Seafood Supply Chain” was scheduled by the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee to focus on the lack of assistance for harvesters and processors.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Seafood industry hit hard by economic downturn of pandemic

May 19, 2020 — Seafood company managers like Jon Pearlman can see the impact of the coronavirus and economic downturn simply by looking at the trucks leaving the lot.

During a busy season, almost 30 of them are used to transport hundreds of orders every day. However, over the last two months, the amount of trucks has dwindled.

“Today, I’ve got seven,” Pearlman said. “The last two months have been devastating.”

As the president of the Congressional Seafood Company, Pearlman has witnessed the growing popularity of seafood around Maryland and surrounding areas since beginning operations in 1996.

But with the company mainly doing business with high-end restaurants, hotels, and caterers, the economic downturn this year has brought things to a crawl.

“It’s heartbreaking, it’s scary, I’m certainly nervous for the future,” Pearlman said. “Where a restaurant used to maybe spend $1,000 or $1,500 on seafood for their daily allowance, now they have two items that they’re offering carry-out on.”

Read the full story at WUSA