Saving Seafood

New England restaurants to buy 3m lbs of haddock from Blue Harvest

March 27, 2020 — Ninety Nine Restaurant and Pub, a Woburn, Massachusetts-based chain with 105 locations, has upped its commitment to haddock in its summer menu, and that’s good news for Blue Harvest Fisheries, the Gloucester (Massachusetts) Times reports.

The chain will buy 750,000 pounds of fresh haddock landed in Gloucester and another 2.25 million lbs of frozen haddock, according to the article, which reports that the combined 3m lbs is roughly 20% of the haddock caught commercially in New England and the rest of the United States.

Much of the fish is now being caught in the Gulf of Maine by vessels previously owned by harvester Jim Odlin, from Portland, Maine, landed in Gloucester, and then trucked to Blue Harvest’s recently built New Bedford processing facility, according to the article. Previously the fish was provided by Gloucester Seafood Processing, a subsidiary of US seafood importer and wholesaler Mazzetta.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

New England Haddock, Pollock and Redfish Trawl Fishery Achieves MSC Certification

May 8, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS —  The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has certified the New England haddock, pollock and redfish trawl fishery as sustainable.

Portland, Maine-based Atlantic Trawlers Fishing, who spearheaded the MSC certification efforts, confirmed the news on Monday.

“The MSC label is the gold star standard of certification and will assure our customers that these fish stocks are healthy and well managed,” Jim Odlin of Atlantic Trawlers said in a statement. “Our vessels – the Nobska, Morue, Harmony, Teresa Marie III and Teresa Marie IV – also use modified fishing gear to minimize the catch of other stocks, like cod, so we can maximize the catch of haddock, pollock and redfish.”

The MSC assessment concluded that the New England fishery management system is “robust and contains requirements that lead to the fulfillment of MSC principles.” The assessment also found that the fishery has extensive catch accountability and traceability systems, as well as strong science supporting the foundation for “rebuilding and maintaining abundant stocks of haddock and redfish, which were previously overfished.”

This story was originally published by Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.