Saving Seafood

US anti-IUU bill would expand SIMP to cover all imported seafood

August 9, 2021 — A recent committee meeting started the discussions on a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and slave labor in the seafood supply chain.

The bill, H.R. 3075, was covered during a recent meeting of the Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee. It would enact the expansion of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) to cover all seafood and seafood products – the program, initiated in 2016, originally included tuna, king crab, blue crab, red snapper, Pacific and Atlantic cod, dolphinfish, grouper, sea cucumber, swordfish, and sharks in its coverage requirements, with shrimp added in 2019.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US restaurants, casinos forced to pull crab, other species over high prices

August 2, 2021 — Seafood is being pulled from restaurant menus across the United States as it becomes too difficult – or expensive – to source.

Nearly every premium item – from lobsters and scallops to king crab and snow crab – is hard to come by these days. And prices on most items have risen at least 50 percent in the past quarter, according to Kristian Wade, executive chef at the MGM Resorts-owned Beau Rivage Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Record-high king crab prices not slowing retail sales

February 19, 2021 — Crab sales at U.S. retailers have hit record highs, with the category as a whole up over 60 percent, and king crab has been buoyed by the surge.

Customers at the retail level are buying record numbers of king crab, according to Michael Kotok, the president of Buffalo, New York, U.S.A.-based Arctic Fisheries. Kotok was speaking during the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference webinar series; SeafoodSource is providing exclusive coverage of the GSMC webinar series, which will be providing exclusive market-focused content throughout 2021.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska fisheries: pollock and crab rule the winter

February 10, 2021 — Freezing February weather doesn’t keep Alaskans off the fishing grounds from Southeast to Norton Sound.

In the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, boats are pulling in pollock, cod, flounders and other groundfish.

More than 3 billion pounds of pollock will come out of the Bering Sea this year, and another 250 million pounds from the gulf.

Prince William Sound also has a winter pollock fishery that will produce nearly 5 million pounds.

Many Alaska crab fisheries are underway or soon to be.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Bering Sea crab pots drop as season opens

October 16, 2020 — Bering Sea crabbers are dropping pots for king crab, snow crab and bairdi Tanner when the fisheries get underway today, Oct. 15.

As expected, the catch was reduced for red king crab taken in the eastern Bering Sea waters of Bristol Bay — just 2.6 million pounds is a 30 percent drop from the 3.8 million pounds taken last season.

“We’ve heard from scientists in the past that there has not been good recruitment into that fishery for over a decade,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of the trade group Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, which represents harvesters.

For the first time since 2018, there will be a bairdi Tanner crab opener with a catch of 2.3 million pounds.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Ocean Acidification Threatens the U.S. Economy

January 3, 2020 — Ocean acidification threatens to cause billions of dollars in damage to the U.S. economy, harming everything from crabs in Alaska to coral reefs in Florida and the Caribbean, NOAA researchers said in a new report.

Carbon dioxide emissions and ocean acidification are occurring at an “unprecedented” rate, deteriorating valuable fisheries and tourist destinations across the United States and its territories, NOAA said in a draft research plan for ocean acidification.

“Commercial, subsistence and recreational fishing [and] tourism and coral ecosystems” will likely be damaged by ocean acidification, the plan said. Multibillion-dollar fisheries such as West Coast Dungeness crab, Alaska king crab and New England sea scallops are vulnerable. So are Florida’s coral reefs, an asset valued at $8.5 billion.

Implicating human activities such as burning fossil fuels, the plan said that ocean acidification “is driven by the growing amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide absorbed and dissolved in the upper ocean.” Ocean acidification makes it hard for some marine organisms such as lobsters, oysters and coral to build shells and skeletons.

Read the full story at Scientific American

World Exporters Innovate to Feed China’s Growing Appetite for Seafood

November 4, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — From Ecuadorian shrimp to Russian king crab, getting a taste of the ocean has never been easier these days for many Chinese. But for exporters trying to tap into this fast-growing seafood market, they need more than just quality products.

At the China Fisheries and Seafood Expo (CFSE), which runs from Wednesday to Friday in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong Province, exporters around the world are bringing out their best to woo increasingly sophisticated Chinese customers.

“Chinese consumers at home may not barbecue or bake fish in the style of Americans or Europeans. Instead, they may put it into hotpot or even in steamed dishes,” said Jeff Welbourn, senior director of new business development of China for Trident Seafoods, a U.S.-based seafood company.

“We should be sensitive to the way people eat fish here and make sure we develop the products that are exciting to Chinese consumers,” he said.

To meet the demand of health-conscious Chinese consumers, the company strives to ensure product quality from source to plate, using supply chain management to win over the rapidly growing and diverse Chinese market, according to Welbourn.

As China’s middle-class population grows, more people now crave a diversified menu on their dining tables, leading to an increasing demand for high-quality seafood.

The rapid development of e-commerce added to seafood’s popularity, with companies such as JD.com and Alibaba promising to deliver fresh seafood to the doorsteps of major city households within hours.

For global exporters, China’s growing appetite for seafood means opportunities. In the first eight months of this year, China’s seafood imports surged 24.8 percent year on year in U.S. dollar terms, official data showed.

“China is such a big market that there is room for everyone,” said Roberto Coronel Kronfle, of Industrial Pesquera Santa Priscila, an Ecuadorian shrimp company.

The firm is expected to see more than 70 percent of its total sales this year coming from China, Coronel said.

Santa Priscila’s booth at the CFSE neighbors several other Ecuadorian shrimp exporters, all of which were often surrounded by importers inquiring about quotations.

To win over the buyers, each firm has developed its own tactics. Jose Luis Salvador, a sales manager for Ecuadorian shrimp exporter Alimesa, said that the company’s competitive advantage lies in quality control as well as a commitment to deliver on time.

“Every client needs a certain date for shipment. That is very important now, so we have to be prepared and pack everything on time according to our selected partners’ needs. We need to comply with what was agreed,” he said.

For some companies, the key to success in China is about focusing on a niche market. Future Cuisine, a producer and exporter of premium New Zealand seafood, is targeting consumers that crave the best with its export of king salmon, a rare species of salmon.

“Now more and more Chinese travel to New Zealand and can get a taste of king salmon that they will never forget. People do taste the difference,” said Sophia Liu, general manager of the company’s China operations.

For others, the trick is about packaging. Vivian Zhang, general manager of KONO Pure NZ Trading (Shanghai), a subsidiary of Kono, a green shell mussels producer and exporter in New Zealand, said the firm designed a smaller packaging of mussels specifically for the Chinese market to cater to the demand of retail customers, who often like to buy online.

“Chinese consumers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. It is an opportunity that we can not afford to miss out on,” she said.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Vanishing ice in the Bering Sea drops to lowest level since 1850

March 8, 2019 — For the second straight year, the Bering Sea — a turbulent and bountiful stretch of the northern Pacific Ocean — is virtually ice free at a time of year when it should be gaining ice.

Why it matters: The ice pack’s ebb and flow each year has far-reaching consequences for the broader Bering Sea ecosystem, including determining the reach and abundance of prized fish species such as Alaska pollock and Pacific cod. This is the richest fishing ground in the U.S., featured in the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch.”

The big picture: Scientists who keep close tabs on this region say the ice’s early melt is upending life in the Last Frontier. It also portends consequences for the Lower 48 states and beyond. In a new study published in Earth’s Future on Thursday, scientists warn that Arctic climate change is already reverberating far outside the region.

  • By the end of February, Bering Sea ice extent was lower than it has been since written records began in 1850.
  • The March 6 departure from the long-term average shows that an area of ice equivalent to California and Montana combined is missing from the Bering Sea.

Read the full story at Axios

Importance of Russian king crab grows as Alaska supplies tighten

January 25, 2019 — Quotas of Russian-landed red king crab from the Far East and Barents Sea fisheries are growing even as Alaskan landings shrink due to concerns about the health of the stock.

However, members of the Global Seafood Market Conference’s Shellfish Panel said last week that US supplies of red king crab are dropping due to the lower Alaska quotas and reduced Russian imports as more crab is sent live to China and South Korea.

The US supply situation could get worse before it gets better, John Sackton of Seafood Datasearch told the audience.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game set the Bristol Bay King Crab quota at 4.3 million pounds for the 2018/19 season, which compares to 6.6m lbs in 2017/18. This year’s effective spawning biomass was 33.3m lbs, greater than the 14.5m lbs needed to open the fishery. But there is concern that the biomass could shrink further in future years, Sackton said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Brad Warren & Julia Sanders: Washington’s Initiative 1631 will help fight ocean acidification

November 2, 2018 — We write today to announce our support for Washington’s Initiative 1631. As businesses who rely on healthy fisheries for a significant portion of our income, we believe this is a well-designed policy that offers us – and our customers – the best possible chance against an uncertain future fraught with the threats of changing ocean conditions.

It’s become clear that our fisheries need a lifeline. Here in Washington, we are experiencing the worst ocean acidification anywhere in the world. Research has firmly established the cause of this problem: emissions from burning coal, oil and gas mix into the ocean, altering its chemistry. The consequences loomed into headlines a decade ago when the oyster industry lost millions and nearly went out of business during the oyster seed crisis. Temporary and limited adaptation measures in hatcheries are keeping them in business, but in the rest of the oceans, fisheries that put dinner on billions of tables are at risk. Here in the Northwest, harvests are already being eroded and even shut down by the effects of unchecked carbon emissions.

The “warm blob,” an unprecedented marine heatwave off the West Coast, reached its height in 2015 and caused mass fatalities. In the Columbia River, a quarter-million salmon died. The largest recorded toxic algae bloom shut down the Dungeness crab fishery for months. The food web crashed, and marine creatures were spotted farther north than ever before. Sea surface temperatures never returned to their previous norm, and new research indicates another blob is forming.

Summers have become synonymous with a smoky haze from wildfires causing poor visibility and poor health – this summer the National Weather Service warned even healthy adults in some Washington areas to stay indoors due to hazardous air quality. At the same time, our iconic orca whales are starving from a lack of Chinook salmon. The Chinook in turn are suffering from a lack of the zooplankton that juveniles eat.

Research has made it clear that some of our most lucrative fisheries are vulnerable to ocean acidification: king crab, Dungeness crab, and salmon. Scientists also warm that combining stressors – like warming with ocean acidification – makes survival in the ocean all the more precarious.

Read the full op-ed at Seafood Source