February 22, 2021 — The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is attempting to steer more Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding to America’s small businesses.
In a 22 February announcement, the White House said it will open a special 14-day period, beginning Wednesday, 24 February, during which time only businesses with fewer than 20 employees may apply for PPP relief.
October 21, 2020 — The restaurant industry and small business organizations in the United States are voicing their displeasure with a proposed second round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) legislation.
“The Paycheck Protection Program didn’t work for restaurants in March and it won’t work now,” the Independent Restaurant Coalition said in a press release. “Since the program began, one in six restaurants has closed, 2.3 million people are no longer on the payroll, and USD 220 billion [EUR 185 billion] in revenue was lost in just the second quarter.”
July 30, 2020 — Proposals for the next U.S. COVID-19 stimulus package are now being workshopped in the U.S. Senate, with food industry groups calling for changes and holding out hope that seafood suppliers will see reimbursement for unpaid invoices from foodservice buyers.
Legislators are negotiating several provisions of the “Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act,” HEALS Act, and the National Fisheries Institute, the U.S. seafood trade lobby, is optimistic that it will end up benefitting the seafood industry.
March 18, 2020 — Genetically tweaked salmon that grow three times faster than normal fish. Fillets grown in labs from fish cells. Now plant-based seafoods such as “vegan shrimp,” or “Toona,” are gaining footholds in the marketplace – and confusing customers.
A new study by FoodMinds for the National Fisheries Institute showed that about 40 percent of consumers believed plant-based imitations contain actual seafood. Up to 60 percent thought the products had similar nutritional content as real fish. Still, fake-seafood producers are pushing back against more accurate labeling, claiming without any evidence that customers know what they are getting.
“We have to ensure that the labels are educating people about something as simple as what’s in the package. A lot of these plant-based alternative makers have even suggested that they have the ‘first amendment right’ to call their products whatever they want. And that’s simply not the case,” said Gavin Gibbons, NFI vice president for communications.
August 15, 2019 — Mercury levels in seafood can shift as fish seek new sources of prey and as water temperatures warm due to climate change, according to a recent study.
The new study, published in Nature, illustrates that even as global human-driven mercury emissions are declining, warming oceans and shifting predator-prey relationships caused by human fishing practices could still be major drivers of mercury in seafood.
February 16, 2018 — The date when the United States will begin enforcing full compliance with a program designed to prevent illegally fished and counterfeit products has been set as 7 April, according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Seafood Import Monitoring Program officially took effect on 1 January, nearly 13 months after officials revealed its regulations that required importers to keep records on selected products. However, officials opted to begin the program with an “informed compliance” phase, choosing to allow shipments with missing or misconfigured data.
“NOAA Fisheries has observed an encouraging and steadily increasing rate of compliance with SIMP filings,” the agency said in a statement.
SIMP requires importers to maintain records for Atlantic cod, blue crab, dolphinfish, grouper, king crab, Pacific cod, red snapper, sea cucumber, sharks, swordfish, and tunas detailing how they were caught or harvested and tracking the products until they reach the U.S.
In January 2017, the National Fisheries Institute and a group of seafood companies sued the government, claiming SIMP violated federal law. However, a federal judge in August ruled against the plaintiffs, saying Congress gave the authority to agencies to issue regulations.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the NFI said that programs like SIMP experience “growing pains” and that the industry will look for opportunities to help NOAA handle such issues as the April deadline draws closer.
“NFI members will work to ensure they are prepared for full implementation of SIMP,” said Gavin Gibbons, the NFI’s vice president of communications.
Read the full story at Seafood Source
February 13, 2018 — A bipartisan group of 11 U.S. Senators have signed on to a plan that would require the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to add shrimp to the Seafood Import Monitoring Program.
In a letter addressed to Sens. Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the senators expressed their support for language in the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, which mandates the inclusion of shrimp in the monitoring program within 30 days of the spending bill’s enactment.
SIMP, which officially took effect last month, requires imported seafood to be traced from the time it was caught or harvested to the time it reaches the United States. The program was created to crack down the sale of counterfeit or illegally caught seafood products to consumers.
Most of the seafood Americans consume is imported and shrimp makes up nearly two-thirds of those imports. Shrimp was one of the species included in the program. However, federal officials have waived it from compliance at this point until similar recordkeeping requirements are also in effect for domestic producers. That, however, has not stopped U.S. commercial fishing groups from pushing NOAA add shrimp to the program.
“The domestic, wild-caught shrimp industry has been in a state of decline for decades due to the flood of cheap, imported shrimp from countries such as India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam,” said Ryan Bradley, Director of the Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United. “This bill is a beacon of hope for our coastal communities that greatly rely on domestic shrimp production – the largest commercial fishing industry in the southeastern United States.”
In their letter, the senators expressed concerns over the use of unapproved antibiotics in foreign farmed shrimp and cited reports of human rights abuses by processors in Thailand, one of the world’s largest shrimp providers.
“We believe that SIMP is a key step to restoring a level playing field for the U.S. shrimp industry,” the senators wrote.
Read the full story at Seafood Source
June 5, 2017 — U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration that June is National Ocean Month – and his stated desire to grow the country’s seafood exports – was praised by seafood industry groups.
“The fisheries resources of the United States are among the most valuable in the world. Growing global demand for seafood presents tremendous opportunities for expansion of our seafood exports, which can reduce our more than US 13 billion (EIR 11.6 billion) seafood trade deficit,” he said.
The American Shrimp Processors Association welcomed President Trump’s call-out of the domestic seafood industry, the organization’s executive director, C. David Veal, told SeafoodSource.
“The American Shrimp Processors Association welcomes any recognition from the Trump administration of the significant problems caused by the trade imbalances of imported seafood. The USD 4.5 billion (EUR 4 billion) trade deficit from shrimp alone has had devastating impacts on communities in the Gulf and South Atlantic regions for the last two decades,” he said. “Any effort to reduce the trade deficit is appreciated by those who make their livelihoods in the domestic shrimp industry and their associated communities.”
In his remarks commemorating the declaration, Trump also said that the country’s offshore areas are underutilized and often unexplored.
“We have yet to fully leverage new technologies and unleash the forces of economic innovation to more fully develop and explore our ocean economy,” he said.
Gavin Gibbons, vice president of communications for the National Fisheries Institute, said it was “good to see the White House taking notice of the seafood community and focusing on the importance of resource utilization.”
“Safe, sustainable expansion of underutilized areas may present an opportunity for expansion of things like aquaculture. We look forward to seeing any administration plan for such an effort,” Gibbons said.
The key to successful expansion of U.S. seafood production will be maintaining the rigorous sustainability oversight of NOAA, according to Gibbons.
“Initiatives that seek long-term growth solutions should continue to observe the tested, science-based system based on total allowable catch,” he said.
May 26, 2017 — U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget, released on Tuesday, 23 May, includes drastic reductions in the budgets of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Those cuts could harm fisheries, ocean conservation efforts, and domestic seafood consumption, according to seafood and food policy groups.
Trump’s budget for the Commerce Department calls for cuts of USD 1.5 billion (EUR 1.3 billion) – the majority targeted at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The budget for NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service operations, research and facilities would be slashed by nearly USD 43 million (EUR 38 million), and the Trump budget cuts would also eliminate USD 250 million (EUR 223 million) in NOAA’s coastal research programs, including the Sea Grant program, which works with universities to support sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, as well as healthy coastal ecosystems.
Gavin Gibbons, a spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute, told SeafoodSource his organization has not yet conducted a thorough review of the budget cuts, but said the group supports full funding for NOAA.
“NOAA is a platinum-level sustainability oversight agency. Its work managing U.S. fisheries is recognized the world over as exceptional,” NFI spokesman Gavin Gibbons said. “Fully funding the essential services that NOAA provides U.S. fisheries is important to not just the future of the resource, but jobs associated with the stocks it helps maintain.”
August 22, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — According to NFI’s Gavin Gibbons, Greenpeace is close to announcing a major new campaign to fund-raise off of a rank and spank approach to US Foodservice companies.
Similar to its retail rankings, Greenpeace scores companies in a subjective manner on how ideologically close they are to the organization.
For example, their retail “red list” contains recommendations to avoid some of the most sustainable and certified seafood products on the planet, such as Alaska pollock. There is no scientific basis for this.
In fact, Greenpeace is very explicit in their desire to halt commercial sales of these species. They say on their website:
“A crucial component of a responsible seafood operation is stopping the sale of the most destructively caught or endangered species. Greenpeace’s Red List is a scientifically compiled list of 22 marine species that should not currently be made commercially available. ”
And what are these species that Greenpeace would like to see the Foodservice industry stop selling?
The species, by order of commercial importance, include warm water shrimp, Atlantic salmon, Alaska pollock, albacore and yellowfin tuna, Atlantic cod, Atlantic sea scallops, hoki, Atlantic halibut, monkfish, redfish, swordfish, orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, Greenland halibut, bluefin tuna, red snapper, sharks and rays, grouper, big eye tuna, and ocean quahogs.
Of the 20 wild caught species targeted by Greenpeace, 15 are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council.
The two farmed species, shrimp and Atlantic salmon, are also certified by both GAA’s Best Aquaculture Practices and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.
So, of the species that Greenpeace is planning to rank companies on because they believe they should not be commercially available, fully 82% of them are certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council or equivalent.
This suggests that the campaign is not about sustainability, but about positioning Greenpeace in opposition to the Marine Stewardship Council, and continuing to fundraise by telling supporters lies about seafood sustainability.
This practice is a very effective publicity and fundraising tool, known as rank and spank.
First Greenpeace creates its own criteria for rankings, not subject to outside review, and releases a report highlighting the malfeasance of companies that sell products Greenpeace wants proscribed.
Then Greenpeace agitates with the public and the publicity shy companies to make some concessions that raise their “score”, allowing Greenpeace to go to supporters and claim they are the tool forcing these companies to change practices.
Then, the cycle is repeated when companies that have complied with Greenpeace are called out again, if they don’t take ideological actions in support of the organization.
For example, Greenpeace called out retailers, and ranked them, by how strongly they pressed the North Pacific Council to close parts of the Bering Sea to protect Bering Sea Canyon habitat. When the US government spent millions of dollars showing that the habitats in question did not have corals, and were not threatened by any fishing activity, the supermarket buyers who had sent letters looked foolish and manipulated.
Some of them took the honest step of withdrawing their letters, once they learned the facts.
As NFI says, “Foodservice companies are among the most dedicated to seafood sustainability and full supply chain sustainability. To target them, rather than laud them illustrates how out of touch Greenpeace is with real sustainability efforts. While the group demands all seafood purchasing decisions be made based on Greenpeace’s arbitrary red list, foodservice providers work hard to ensure they understand the sustainability story of each species and the efforts underway to maintain those stocks.”
Many foodservice companies have committed to sustainable purchasing programs. Some support fisheries improvement projects and virtually all of them now demand full traceability to ensure the integrity of their supply chain.
There is no need for Greenpeace to agitate in this environment. The foodservice companies targeted in this list do not need to respond, except to show what they are already doing to promote sustainability, and to emphasize they were taking these actions long before Greenpeace’s rank and spank system ever came out.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.