July 30, 2021 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new massive bid request for 7.942 million pounds of frozen Alaska pollock will push the agency’s pollock purchases to near-record levels.
With the latest acquisition, the agency will have purchased nearly 18.3 million pounds of Alaskan pollock for the fiscal year 2021, Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) CEO Craig Morris told SeafoodSource.
May 6, 2021 — The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released a bid solicitation for 8.3 million pounds of Alaska pollock fish sticks and fillets for use in the National School Lunch Program and other Federal Food and Nutrition Assistance Programs.
The bid asks for more Alaska Pollock than USDA has ever purchased in an entire year besides 2017, 2019 and 2020, Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) CEO Craig Morris told IntraFish.
The products will be distributed to several states throughout the United States.
Acceptances will be announced by May 26. Deliveries are to be made between July 1 of this year through Feb. 28 of next year.
March 10, 2021 — 7-Eleven has rolled out Wild Alaskan Pollock Fish Bites for the Lenten season in a limited-time capacity.
The offering includes five bite-sized morsels of herb panko-crusted Alaskan pollock filets served on a skewer, with a side of tartar sauce for dipping. The bites are priced at USD 3.69 (EUR 3.10) daily, and USD 3 (EUR 2.52) on Fridays for 7Rewards members.
March 1, 2021 — A meteoric global rise of frozen Alaska pollock consumption during the course of 2020 could not make up for an overall decrease in pollock consumption by US consumers compared to the previous year.
That’s largely due to reduced imports as well as a smaller catch for domestic product during the year. Alaska pollock producers ended B season last year leaving nearly 65,000 fish in the water due to several challenging factors, including less-valuable fish sizes and a biomass widely dispersed across the grounds
While consumption declined by 11 percent in 2020 to 0.873 pounds per person from 2019 levels of 0.983 pounds per person, the overall US per capita consumption of pollock was still well above 2018’s level of 0.717 pounds per person, according to the Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers’ (GAPP).
“Despite this slight decline in 2020, the jump in the percentage of domestically-caught fish makes it clear that US consumers are trying, loving and gravitating towards our Wild Alaska Pollock like never before,” said GAPP CEO Craig Morris.
March 30, 2020 — While many in the fishing industry are struggling to sell their catch, one of America’s favorite fish, the Alaskan Pollock, continues to be in high demand. Why? Because the species is used to make many frozen items that show up in grocery stores across the country, such as frozen fish sticks and breaded fish fillets.
Frozen seafood products are in high demand as Americans stock up for the various quarantines in place. Sales have gone up as a result. Seafood Source reports, “Frozen seafood spiked 3.5 percent to around USD 1.1 billion for the week ending on 7 March and rose 4.9 percent for the month ending on 7 March.”
Alaskan Pollock is also used in many fast-casual sandwiches such as the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish. Craig Morris, CEO of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers, said that grocery stores “are doing very well during the current COVID-19 response here and in Europe.” This means that fishermen have plenty of buyers to sell their fish to.
January 22, 2020 — A group of Alaskan pollock industry officials, in China for a 10-day trade visit to explore opportunities in the country, met with senior U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service officials at the United States’ Embassy in Beijing last week.
The tour, sponsored in large part by a grant from the Emerging Market Department of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service, also included stops in Qingdao and Shanghai.
February 5, 2019 — Given that the harvesters of Alaska pollock are limited in how much they can catch and there is no shortage of sales, the only sensible tack to grow business seems to be increasing the fish’s value on the market, believes Craig Morris, the new CEO of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP).
Also, he’s not sure it makes sense to keep attacking Russian pollock as an inferior product.
“Russia is making a major investment in their fleet,” he said. “Potentially the quality differences between US and Russian pollock in five to 10 years are less than they are today. I think that’s one of the things we need to talk through … I would hate for us to invest millions of dollars to differentiate ourselves from Russian pollock and then, at the end of that campaign, [find out] the way that we chose to differentiate ourselves doesn’t make any sense.”