Saving Seafood

New England 2017 scallop plan likely to mean landings of 47.5m pounds

November 22, 2016 — The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) has approved an Atlantic sea scallop fishery management plan for 2017, which maintains landings at a comparable level to 2016, it said.

The framework establishes specifications for the 2017 fishing year, and sets default specifications for 2018.

All told, estimated landings for 2017 are put at 47.5 million pounds, NEFMC said. So far this fishing year — March to October — the fishery has caught around 33m pounds, Dvora Hart, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Undercurrent News.

She estimated that by the end of the fishing year, on Feb. 28, fishers will have caught a total of around 40m pounds for 2016. Hence, the NEFMC’s projection suggests an increase of 18.7%.

The NEFMC, meanwhile, told Undercurrent that “many factors go into these calculations, but once all of the adjustments and deductions are made, the council’s projections indicate that landings in the end will be very similar — not exactly the same, but in the same general ballpark”.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

High US scallop yield expectations may impact market now

September 28, 2016 — Contrary to expectations in some quarters, there may not be a boom in US scallop landings next year, and planning for one now could adversely affect the market, Joe Furtado — executive vice president of Eastern Fisheries — told Undercurrent News.

“If your only source of information was the headlines of most of the articles over the last year, you would think that the fishery is going to be double what it has been. But the reality is that the exploitable biomass just isn’t growing as quickly as anticipated,” he said.

Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2015 claimed to have identified very strong scallop recruitment throughout the Mid-Atlantic, and especially so in an area called the ‘Elephant’s Trunk‘.

“Recruitment refers to two-year-old scallops, roughly two inches in shell height,” Dvora Hart with NOAA told Undercurrent at that time.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News 

US scallop prices expected to rise with little relief in sight

September 27, 2016 — US scallop prices look set to fluctuate but generally trend upwards throughout the fall, with no alternatives at reasonable prices, sources told Undercurrent News.

After the July 4 celebrations, prices for fresh scallop raw materials took an unusual dip in pricing, several sources said – though this quickly corrected and prices are now high again.

“Pricing started off very strong at the beginning of the season; ex-vessel prices of $18.50 per pound for U10s and U12s, and $12+ for both 10/20s and 20/30s,” said Joe Furtado, executive vice president of Eastern Fisheries.

“But, over the last 60 days, we have actually seen a reduction in ex-vessel pricing, where it is trending about $1/lb less than April/ May pricing.”

“It’s actually the first time that I have seen post July 4 pricing trend downward,” he added.

However, two other sources suggested this dip was only temporary, and that more recently prices were right back up again.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Global scallop supply limited in 2016, but rising in 2017

April 6, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — As the US east coast sea scallop fishing season ramps up, two of the world’s biggest scallops companies see prices at a plateau for now with tight supply in 2016 poised to ease soon after

Speaking to Undercurrent News at the headquarters of Eastern Fisheries, the world’s largest scallop firm, executive vice-president Joe Furtado said that decreased US scallop supplies are expected to keep prices elevated, at least for a little while.

“The overall outlook for this year is still down as a whole but the overall outlook for 2017 is a significant rebound from a supply perspective,” Joe Furtado, executive vice-president of Eastern Fisheries said. “So I think we’ve made some market corrections due to the reality that there’s just less scallops this year but in anticipation of a rebound in 2017, I think you’ll start to see receding pricing in the back half of this year.”

Eastern has two processing factories in New Bedford, another two in northeastern China, one of which is also used for flatfish processing, and a third recently opened in Staphorst, Netherlands that handles all of the company’s European scallops. The company is co-owned by two family businesses, O’Hara Corporation and Nordic Fisheries, which together own a fleet of 26 scallop vessels.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News