Saving Seafood

Seafood companies step up to help COVID-19 relief and recovery efforts

April 13, 2020 — Seafood companies across the United States have stepped up with donations of food, personal protective equipment, soap, and other items in response to the coronavirus crisis that is gripping the nation.

Sealaska, Bumble Bee, Tampa Bay Fisheries, Handy Seafood, Verlasso, and Diversified Communications are just a few companies in the seafood industry that have made efforts to help their communities in the ongoing health crisis that has killed more than 20,400 citizens, sickened half-a-million, and left practically the entire country with limited access to food and other necessities of life.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Industry’s challenge to seafood import monitoring program rejected

August 29, 2017 — A legal challenge to the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) – a set of regulations requiring increased traceability for seafood imports – was rejected on Monday, 28 August.

The lawsuit was filed earlier this year by the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) and a large group of U.S. seafood companies, including Trident Seafoods, Fortune Fish and Gourmet, Handy Seafood, and Alfa International Seafood. The industry representatives argued that the program violated federal law and that their businesses would be harmed as a result of its implementation.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled against the plaintiffs, finding that the Commerce Department’s implementation of the program was not done inappropriately. Specifically, Mehta found that SIMP was issued under rules allowed under the Magnuson-Stevens Act and Administrative Procedure Act, and that the department properly completed a regulatory flexibility analysis to determine SIMP’s impact on small businesses.

“The court finds that the rule’s issuance did not run afoul of the MSA, and the current Secretary of Commerce validly ratified the rule, thereby curing any alleged constitutional defect in the rule’s promulgation,” Mehta wrote.

Read the full story at Seafood Source