Saving Seafood

New Data from the Marine Stewardship Council: U.S. Leads the World in Certified Environmentally Sustainable Fisheries

January 27, 2026 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a global nonprofit organization that works to end overfishing, today announced 2025 year-end data showing that 90% of U.S. fisheries by volume are MSC certified and meet rigorous requirements for environmentally sustainable fishing practices, making the U.S. a leader in sustainable fisheries.

A trusted nonprofit dedicated to ending overfishing and maintaining a healthy ocean, the MSC sets criteria to ensure healthy fish stocks, minimal harmful impacts on marine ecosystems, and to promote effective and responsive management.

U.S. achievements for 2025 include:

  • 62 species certified
  • More than 1,300 MSC eco-labeled products available in the U.S. market
  • MSC eco-labeled products can now be found in all 50 states

“MSC is proud to partner with U.S. fisheries that have a long-standing commitment to sustainability and the protection of our country’s marine resources,” said Laura McDearis, U.S. program director, Marine Stewardship Council.

“As demonstrated by the 90% of U.S. fishery landings by volume that are certified to MSC’s rigorous requirements for environmentally sustainable fishing, the leadership and great work of our U.S. partners can’t be understated. MSC certification validates U.S. fisheries’ dedication to ensuring the long-term health of our ocean and sets an example for countries around the globe to follow,” continued McDearis.

Other notable MSC certified fisheries milestones in 2025 include the completion of long-term research projects in the Alaska Salmon fishery, in collaboration with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. In 2025 the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic menhaden purse seine fisheries were recertified, with support from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the University of Southern Mississippi’s National Science Foundation-supported Science Center for Marine Fisheries, respectively.

In addition, several new fisheries entered the MSC program last year, including the U.S. Atlantic summer flounder and black sea bass trawl fishery. Other fisheries, such as Pacific hake and Louisiana blue crab are celebrating more than a decade of certification against the MSC Standard.

“For nearly ten years, Lund’s Fisheries, Inc. has collaborated with the MSC, and our partner conformity assessment bodies (CABs), to assure domestic and international markets, vitally important to our long-term success that the seafood we produce is managed sustainably based on rigorous, annual, scientific and monitoring reviews,” said Wayne Reichle, Owner and President, Lund’s Fisheries. “Our MSC-certified Atlantic sea scallop, Atlantic and Pacific squid, and Atlantic menhaden purse seine, scup, fluke and black sea bass trawl fisheries, have provided us with access to markets that would not otherwise be available to our third-generation fishing company, to the benefit of our community, our employees and our company and independent fishermen whose cooperation we depend upon each day as we plan for the future.

2025 was a challenging year for U.S. fisheries, with increasing pressure to safeguard marine ecosystems against the backdrop of rapidly escalating climate change. Environmental conditions including shifting and extreme weather patterns, as well as distribution and recruitment of fish due to warming waters, greatly impacted U.S. fisheries. A recent study conducted by the MSC and the Common Oceans Program showed that tuna and other highly migratory fish are particularly vulnerable to climate change due to the impacts of shifting stocks and the reduction in the number of fish in the ecosystem due to climate change. The research also found that certification can help mitigate risk, making fisheries potentially more resilient to climate impacts.

On the U.S. seafood markets side, the introduction of tariffs by the Trump administration challenged the seafood industry significantly, affecting seafood trade, imports and prices at retail, as only approximately 38% of seafood consumed in the U.S. is of domestic origin. Nevertheless, MSC certified seafood products continued to grow on the market, with an 8% increase in volume of MSC certified products in the U.S. from 2024 to 2025. MSC certified supply chain partners remain committed to environmental sustainability despite these challenging times, with retailers like Aldi, ShopRite, and Walmart making MSC certified seafood accessible and easily identifiable through in-store signage and online messaging.

“At Wakefern, partnering with MSC has allowed us to create valuable communications tools that help consumers navigate the sustainable seafood options we offer at ShopRite and Price Rite stores,” said Alexandra Emery, Manager of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility at Wakefern Food Corp. “Our Bowl & Basket and Wholesome Pantry frozen products, like wild caught scallops and flounder fillets, are also MSC certified, allowing consumers to shop sustainably and responsibly from our store brand product lines.”

Sustainable wild fisheries are essential to American fishing communities and a resilient, productive ocean, offering a renewable, low-carbon source of nutritious protein. The growing commitment from fisheries and the marketplace to the MSC program reflects a shared vision for that future. Continued commitment by governments, industry, consumers and political leaders is essential in the face of warming oceans, and critical to stay on track to deliver the UN Agenda 2030 goals before the end of the decade, including sustainable development goal 14 to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

Read the release from the Marine Stewardship Council

Untangling the Net: Independent Fishermen Push Back Against Bureaucratic Overreach

October 31, 2025 — The following was released by the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy:

Family fishers overwhelmingly dominate the small commercial fishing industry, with businesses that span generations. In fact, the family of Advocacy’s very own Chief Counsel Casey B. Mulligan has been fishing off the coast of New York since the 1600s.

But today, American fishermen are burdened by excessive regulations that control where and how much they can fish, even when concerns about overfishing are dated or exaggerated.

“Generally speaking, the situation that small businesses are in requires regulatory loosening,” Greg DeDomenico, Fisheries Management Specialist for Lund’s Fisheries, said.

Over a two-and-a-half-hour conversation, driven in part by a recent Advocacy letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Advocacy staff met with fishermen from the Northeast to discuss how the Trump Administration could ease rules to benefit fishers and the economies they drive.

The first topic of conversation focused on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), mandated observers. According to federal law, fishermen are required to carry federal observers on their boats. These observers support stock assessments, assist in data gathering for fisheries management, and act as enforcement agents.

In 2020, NOAA issued a rule requiring some fishermen to pay for the observers, despite the law explicitly stating that the government was responsible for funding the program.

The costs that the National Marine Fisheries Service impose on small businesses are substantial: $710 per day per observer. Notably, the fishermen never objected to the presence of federal officials, just paying the observer’s salaries.

“We support observers,” said DiDomeneco. “We take a lot of observers. But we don’t want to pay them when the government should.”  Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for Seafreeze LTD, has been fighting the economic impact of the observers rule since it was proposed in 2015.

“If the NMFS wanted more observer coverage than what Congress appropriated funding for,” Lapp said, “they made boats pay for it out of pocket.” This negates the Congressional power of the purse.

Lapp successfully compelled the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Councils to undertake an economic analysis, but only the Mid-Atlantic Council found a substantial economic impact to the fishing industry.

Not only does NOAA charge fishers for ecological and enforcement work, but they also mismanage funds legally dedicated to promoting and developing US fisheries and seafood markets. The fishermen who spoke with Advocacy described NOAA’s mismanagement of a federal fund created by the Saltonstall-Kennedy Act, which was designed to take tariffs on imported seafood and use that money to balance the seafood trade deficit by marketing US seafood and supporting economic development of commercial fisheries. Instead of using this money for its designated purpose, NOAA annually diverts the funds into its general operations account, while commercial fishing profits continue to decline.

The fishermen directly contrasted this with how the Department of Agriculture treats American beef and pork, which get dedicated advertising campaigns. Tyler Macallister, owner and captain of Off the Charts Sportfishing and commercial fisherman for 41 years, noted that doing so would allow fishermen to “develop the domestic markets that exist and get away from imports.”

Even small changes, like allowing American-caught scup to be rebranded as “Northern snapper,” would result in more robust markets for American seafood. But as Lapp noted, the FDA has rejected this idea in the past while giving deference to foreign imports sold under similar market names.

Another major concern for the fishermen came from coastal wind farms. Macallister, who has a background in marine biology and has researched offshore wind development, noted that wind turbine installation is undoubtedly damaging the marine environment, rendering fishing impossible.

“Wind farms diminish our access to the places we’ve been fishing for fifty years,” said DiDomenico. It is unacceptable to have a large foreign investment come to this country and displace fishermen without caring whatsoever.”

The stakeholders expressed frustration that their fishing grounds were treated differently from farmland. Lapp recalled that the Department of Agriculture recently issued a rule saying, “you cannot put windmills on prime US farmland.” “We should have one that says you can’t put windmills on prime fishing grounds,” Lapp countered.

Lapp also noted the safety risks of operating around a wind farm, which interfere with marine radar and Coast Guard search and rescue operations.

The consensus from the conversation was that it was time to better support US commercial fishermen.

“We’ve lost the plot,” said Jared Auerbach, CEO of Red’s Best Seafood. “When we’re interacting with all these agencies, it doesn’t feel like you have the same goal of healthy seafood and sustainable fish. Sometimes it feels like the goal is to keep your business small.”

Read the story online here

NEW JERSEY: Middle Thorofare Bridge in Cape May County, New Jersey, is set to be replaced with $400 million project

July 23, 2025 — Last summer, CBS Philadelphia highlighted problems with the Middle Thorofare Bridge, which links Cape May and Wildwood Crest in New Jersey.

The bridge, which has carried hundreds of thousands of cars between the Wildwoods and Cape May, is in rough shape.

In fact, its condition keeps some local officials awake at night.

But now, there is a plan to completely replace the crossing.

Joe Rotondi was casting off, trying his luck in a new spot, just beneath the bridge.

The North Jersey native has traveled the bridge countless times, but underneath, he said, the angle was an eye-opener.

“It’s a little shaky,” Rotondi said. “I’m assuming it’s been here forever and things were built to last.”

On the other side of the inlet, things are busy off Wayne Reichle’s docks.

“We are harvesting between 75 to 100 million pounds of seafood annually,” Reichle, the president of Lund’s Fisheries, said.

Read the full article at CBS News

Why the Fishing Industry Fought: Inside the Battle Over Chevron

May 2, 2025 — Wayne Reichle – who’s been in the fishing business his whole life – had never heard of the Chevron doctrine. That’s the two-step legal test that courts used for the past 40 years to decide whether a federal agency had the authority to make a regulation.

“No idea,” said Reichle, president of New Jersey-based Lund’s Fisheries. “Myself, and many, many fellow fishermen had no idea what the Chevron doctrine was.”

That changed after a group of fishermen challenged a federal regulation requiring the herring industry to pay for onboard federal observers. “I think there’s quite a few that know what the Chevron doctrine is today,” Reichle said.

This season on UnCommon Law, we’re exploring the limits of agency power. To what extent are federal agencies authorized to create and implement regulations that aren’t explicitly mandated by Congress? And what happens when an agency goes too far? In this episode, the story of the fishermen who fought back.

Listen to the full story at Bloomberg Law

Lund’s Fisheries, PAFCO cease business with Chinese processors named in Outlaw Ocean report

October 15, 2023 — Cape May, New Jersey, U.S.A.-based Lund’s Fisheries has ceased its business relationship with a Chinese supplier in the wake of a report by the Outlaw Ocean Project on the use of Uyghur laborers at seafood companies in China.

Lund’s Fisheries, in a statement released on 13 October, said that upon hearing questions and criticisms about Rongcheng Haibo – one of several Chinese companies named by the Outlaw Ocean Project in its report – it initiated an internal investigation and “resolved not to renew existing contracts with Rongcheng Haibo until that work was complete.” Now, although the company said it did not find any evidence of illegal activity or forced labor at Rongcheng Haibo, the company will continue to maintain the cessation of new business “pending further investigation.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Statement from Lund’s Fisheries Condemning IUU Fishing and Human Rights Violations

October 15, 2023 — The following was released by Lund’s Fisheries:

Lund’s Fisheries takes allegations of this type seriously, which is why we engaged in numerous productive discussions with Ian Urbina and the staff of the Outlaw Ocean Project beginning in January 2023. In good faith, we conscientiously shared documentation, procedures, policies and industry knowledge surrounding domestic and international fishing, foreign processing and imports. We will continue to address Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing, and forced labor allegations with industry members, NGOs, and our government to strengthen the seafood supply chain and provide consumers with the utmost confidence.

Upon hearing questions and criticisms raised about Rongcheng Haibo, we initiated an internal investigation, and resolved not to renew existing contracts with Rongcheng Haibo until that work was complete. Although our investigation did not find any evidence of illegal activity or forced labor in the operations of Roncheng Haibo Seafood, we are maintaining our cessation of new business pending further investigation.

Lund’s Fisheries requires a Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) from all of our foreign suppliers. SMETA is the world’s most widely used audit in assessing standards of labor, health and safety, environmental performance, and ethics. The SMETA audit is designed to help protect workers from unsafe conditions, overwork, discrimination, low pay, and forced labor. The SMETA process is what companies use to evaluate their suppliers, specifically when referring to forced labor risks. In addition, we also engage with each supplier, requiring that they sign a supplier declaration agreement, wherein they must agree to not employ forced labor. We analyze and evaluate all the documentation they provide to us, including their SMETA audit reports, annually, to verify the results.

As a proud member of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s Global Squid Supply Chain Roundtable, Lund’s Fisheries is committed to working towards sustainable fisheries and combatting IUU fishing and human rights violations globally.

Lund’s Fisheries is a family owned and operated, vertically integrated seafood harvester and processor which operates 19 fishing vessels on the East and West Coast of the United States and 5 seafood processing facilities in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California. Our US plants produce a variety of Marine Stewardship Council-certified whole and cleaned calamari products, sea scallops, and multiple species of finfish.

Lund’s Fisheries will celebrate our 70th anniversary next year. Our relationships with our customers, employees, consumers and partners are our first priority, and we take great pride in maintaining the integrity of what we do each day.

New Jersey: Lund’s Fisheries accredited for in-house seafood safety inspection

September 30, 2022 — Lund’s Fisheries of  Cape May, N.J. is now accredited to conduct its own food safety inspections on all seafood that the company harvests, processes, and ships, after building up its own laboratory facilities and meeting international standards.

“The company’s in-house lab equipment and testing protocols, built out over the last year, have met internationally recognized standards, and can now be used to test all Lund’s products before going directly to consumers,” Lund’s said in a Sept. 27 announcement.

Before being sold, seafood products are required to be tested for microbiological contaminants such as E. coli, listeria, and salmonella. Most seafood products go to third-party laboratories to conduct tests, as few seafood companies in the U.S. have the in-house capability to test their own products.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

 

Lund’s Fisheries Achieves International Accreditation to Conduct Microbiological Inspections Following Major Investments

September 27, 2022 — The following was released by Lund’s Fisheries:

Lund’s Fisheries is now accredited to conduct its own food safety inspections on all seafood that the company harvests, processes, and ships. The company’s in-house lab equipment and testing protocols, built out over the last year, have met internationally recognized standards, and can now be used to test all Lund’s products before going directly to consumers.

Before being sold, seafood products are required to be tested for microbiological contaminants such as E. coli, listeria, and salmonella. Usually, the products are sent to third-party laboratories to conduct the tests; few seafood companies in the U.S. have the capability to test their own products. To develop this capacity for itself, Lund’s Fisheries set out last summer to build out its testing capabilities, aligning them with international best standards and practices and finally getting them officially accredited this month.

“This accreditation recognizes our dedication to the quality and safety of our seafood,” said Joshua Farinella, Lund’s Director of Compliance and Quality Assurance. “Lund’s now has direct control over the full chain of custody, so we can guarantee that any product meets our high standards from the boat to the plate.”

Lund’s Fisheries to Be Featured On Outdoor Channel’s “The Fishmonger,” Airing May 23

May 23, 2022 — Make sure you’re in front of your TV at 8:30 p.m. on Monday night. Lund’s Fisheries will be featured on the Outdoor Channel’s latest episode of “The Fishmonger.”

“The Fishmonger” is hosted by Tommy Gomes, aka Tommy the Fishmonger. The upcoming episode, which will air on Monday, May 23 at 8:30 p.m., will find Gomes in Cape May, New Jersey. The episode will find him connecting with the team at Lund’s Fisheries to explore a large-scale operation.

Read the full story at Seafood News

US Atlantic scup bottom-trawl fishery achieves MSC certification

May 18, 2022 — The U.S. Atlantic scup bottom-trawl fishery has achieved Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification, verifying sustainable fishing practices are being used in the fishery. The certificate will be jointly held by commercial fishing operations of Cape May, New Jersey, U.S.A.-based Lund’s Fisheries and North Kingstown, Rhode Island, U.S.A.-based Seafreeze.

Scup (Stenotomus chrysops) is a brown and silver food fish found in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, primarily between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S.A., and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, U.S.A.. The fish is also known as porgy, maiden, fairmaid, and ironsides. Unlike many fish populations, scup is considered an “underutilized species.” Scup populations have been steadily increasing along the U.S. East Coast since the mid-1990s, MSC said.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource