Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Community Foundation Announces Grants

February 1, 2021 — The Martha’s Vineyard Community Foundation, formerly known as the Permanent Endowment for Martha’s Vineyard, has announced two new grants to Island organizations.

The MV Fishermen’s Preservation Trust received $25,000 to re-establish a commercially viable wholesale fish market in Menemsha, and the Community Ambassador Partnership was awarded $13,367 to provide medical interpretation training to better serve the Portuguese-speaking community with medical needs or questions, particularly in light of the pandemic and upcoming vaccinations for Covid-19.

“This year has highlighted the need to be flexible and nimble in responding to emerging needs,” community foundation board chair Anne Williamson said in a statement. “If we want to maintain a robust fishing industry based out of our harbors, then it’s critical to support a wholesale outlet for their catch.”

Executive director Emily Bramhall said the foundation has supported the Community Ambassador Partnership since it was formed at the beginning of the pandemic.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

ALASKA: Trident Seafoods reports 266 total virus cases at Aleutian plant plus small outbreak on vessel in Dutch Harbor

January 29, 2021 — Trident Seafoods is reporting COVID-19 cases among more than a third of the roughly 705 workers at the company’s remote Akutan processing plant, which is North America’s largest.

The company on Thursday reported 266 workers tested positive for the virus this week with nearly all testing complete.

Trident also reported a separate, smaller outbreak aboard one of its three large catcher processor vessels, the 312-foot Island Enterprise.

That vessel arrived in Dutch Harbor on Thursday with two workers exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms, Trident said in a statement. Rapid testing through the night of all 125 people onboard revealed five confirmed cases and two non-positive workers reporting minor symptoms.

Trident officials say they don’t know how either of the outbreaks started. On Monday, Trident temporarily shut down the Akutan plant for at least three weeks. They plan to “re-quarantine” everyone on the Island Enterprise for at least 14 days.

This week, Trident officials said they took the unusual step of stockpiling medical supplies including ventilators in case weather grounds air ambulances. The nearest hospital is hundreds of miles away.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

New England Fishery Management Council Issues Update On Start of 2021 Scallop Fishing Year

January 29, 2021 — On Wednesday the New England Fishery Management Council signed off on Framework 33 , which includes specifications for the 2021 scallop fishing year and default specifications for the 2022 fishing year; among other measures.

Currently the scallop industry is operating under the 2020 fishing year, with the 2021 fishing year set to begin on April 1. Framework adjustment 33 will not be implemented by April 1 due to complications related to COVID-19 and the cancellation of the federal scallop survey. The Council is warning fishermen that they will be working under default 2021 measures that were established in Framework 32 as a backup.

Read the full story at Seafood News

N.J.’s sinking fishing industry nabs $11M life raft from state

January 29, 2021 — Nearly a year after being approved by federal lawmakers, financial relief is being handed out to New Jersey’s battered fishing industry.

Gov. Phil Murphy and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced Friday that $11.3 million in grants are being distributed to Garden State fishermen, and the businesses that support them.

“Our fishing communities and seafood industries are important parts of our New Jersey identity, and crucial components of our state’s economy,” Murphy said in a statement. “The grants our administration is making to our partners in fishing industries will help the business and communities impacted by this public health emergency. I continue to encourage our New Jersey family to support our fishing industry by buying from local seafood suppliers and enjoying fishing through our local charter boat operations and bait and tackle shops.”

Read the full story at NJ.com

Texas fishing industry finally gets COVID-19 stimulus

January 29, 2021 — The Texas fishing industry is about to get a long-awaited $9 million that Congress allocated way back in March 2020.

Commercial fishing experienced “broad declines” as COVID-19 ravaged the country, according an analysis by NOAA Fisheries. Data shows that revenue among Gulf Coast and southeast fisheries fell sharply between February and June as the pandemic slowed the economy.

The $2.2 trillion CARES Act, which Congress passed in March, allocated $300 million for the fishing industry in coastal states. Texas was allocated $9 million, or 3 percent.

Read the full story at The Houston Chronicle

COVID-19 outbreaks force seafood processing shutdowns in Alaska, Chile

January 28, 2021 — COVID-19 outbreaks in seafood processing plants in Alaska and Chile have highlighted how the virus is still wreaking havoc on the global seafood industry, more than a year after the first cases were reported outside of China.

Despite hopes that the start of vaccination efforts in the U.S. and elsewhere might eventually bring an end to the problems the virus has caused, the seafood industry is still treading carefully, trying to thread the needle between worker safety and maintaining profitability – or at least solvency.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Market disruptions, supply crunch mar seafood industry’s build-up to Chinese New Year

January 28, 2021 — China’s seafood market is facing increased turbulence and uncertainty at the onset of what is usually its busiest period, the run-up to Chinese New Year, which falls on 12 February.

“The market is up and down” following a rash of new COVID-19 outbreaks, which has resulted in the key port city of Dalian going into lockdown, according to an executive from a leading importer.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Panera CEO Niren Chaudhary on the future of restaurants, Feb. 9

January 28, 2021 — Niren Chaudhary, CEO of the Panera Bread Co. bakery-restaurant chain, will address the future of restaurants post-COVID-19  in a virtual National Press Club Headliners Newsmaker event on Tuesday, Feb. 9, at 1 p.m.

This one-hour program, part of the National Press Club Virtual Headliners series, will stream live, and is accessible to both the media and members of the general public free-of-charge. Download a calendar reminder or access the livestream here.

Chaudhary took the helm at Panera in May 2019, just eight months before Covid-19 emerged. The ensuing “stay-at-home” directives forced restaurants, bars and other venues where people gather to rethink their business models. As the pandemic progresses, restaurants had to adapt — sometimes weekly — to changing restrictions.

Chaudhary will discuss how the restaurant industry is working to survive in a time of reduced or no capacity, changing restrictions, and continuing uneasiness abound dining out.

Read the full story at the National Press Club

NOAA wants monitors on 40% of groundfish trips

January 28, 2021 — NOAA Fisheries has established a monitoring coverage target that would deploy at-sea monitors aboard 40% of all groundfish sector trips in the Northeast in the upcoming 2021 fishing year, the agency announced Tuesday.

The 2021 ASM coverage target represents a 25% increase from the 32% monitoring coverage target in the 2020 fishing year for the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery.

“Consistent with the requirement to monitor sector operations and to reliably estimate overall catch to the extent practical, the coverage target level will be 40%,” NOAA Fisheries stated in its bulletin  announcing the coverage target.

At-sea monitoring coverage levels for Northeast sector groundfish vessels was one of the more tumultuous issues of the 2020 fishing season because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the monitoring program and the New England Fishery Management Council’s approval of Amendment 23 that set future at-sea monitoring coverage target rates for the fishery.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

COVID-19 Outbreak At Aleutian Processing Plant Grows To 135

January 28, 2021 — A COVID-19 outbreak at one of Alaska’s largest fish processing plants has infected nearly 20 percent of workers, with testing only partially finished, officials said Tuesday.

At Trident Seafoods’ huge plant on the remote Aleutian island of Akutan, 135 of 700 workers have tested positive for the virus, state officials reported Tuesday.

The company has only tested about half of its workforce, and Dr. Joe McLaughlin, the state epidemiologist, said at a news conference that the outbreak is still on an “upward trajectory.”

“I don’t think this outbreak is going to end in the next several days,” McLaughlin said. “I think it’s going to go on for a while.”

Trident officials announced a three-week closure last week after a handful of workers tested positive for COVID-19, just as the billion-dollar pollock fishing season kicked off.

Read the full story at KUCB