March 19, 2019 — The Coast Guard said it medevaced a sick fisherman Sunday from a boat 50 miles off Gloucester and took him to the hospital.
An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter aircrew from Air Station Cape Cod picked up the 40-year-old ill fisherman from the fishing vessel America, approximately 50 miles east of Gloucester on Sunday.
The aircrew brought the man to Massachusetts General Hospital.
March 19, 2019 — Representatives of 14 companies from the municipality of Gloucester, Massachusetts met with the state’s governor, Charlie Baker, Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, U.S. Representative Seth Moulton, State Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, and Gloucester Mayor on Monday, 18 March at Seafood Expo North America.
The elected officials each took turns praising Gloucester and the quality of its seafood, and proclaimed their support for an industry that is estimated to employ about 100,000 workers and have an economic impact of around USD 2 billion (EUR 1.8 billion).
“As somebody who has spent time in New Bedford, in Gloucester, and in a whole bunch of places in between, I am more than aware of the fact that this particular industry doesn’t just feed families by having them purchase the product that’s associated with what they deliver…it also feeds families who bring it to shore and ultimately get it to market,” Baker said.
At the reception, Baker announced more than USD 116,000 (EUR 102,000) in grants for research projects intended to benefit the seafood industry in Massachusetts. The grants will study Massachusetts’ port infrastructure, consumer preferences for local seafood, and fishermen’s approach to traceability technology.
March 19, 2019 — It was like the first day of school when Martha Stewart’s culinary director, Thomas Joseph, arrived at the 2019 Seafood Expo North America event in Boston, Massachusetts on its opening day.
Joseph, who is a 2017 James Beard Award winner, pulled up to the continent’s largest seafood trade event with the four initial offerings under the Martha Stewart brand’s latest seafood product line in tow, ready for their debut. The products were created in partnership with Cooke Inc.’s True North Seafood.
“We’re super-excited,” Joseph told SeafoodSource on Sunday, 17 March, as SENA19 roared to life. “Today was like the first day of school coming here, like I’m dropping my kids off.”
If you ask Joseph and Cooke Vice President of Public Relations Joel Richardson, the kids will be more than all right. Each a “labor of love,” the product line’s first outing includes Atlantic Salmon with Lemon Herb Butter; Sockeye Salmon with Miso Butter; Wild Alaska Pollock with Southwest Spice Blend; and a Seafood Medley (Wild Alaska Pollock, Atlantic Salmon, and Bay Scallops) with Herb Spice Blend. The line is expected to hit grocery store shelves in the United States in May 2019.
March 18, 2019 — Legit Fish, a Boston, Massachusetts-based traceability company, is launching a new traceability technology at Seafood Expo North America.
The company, which has partnered with the BASE Auction Company, is unveiling its new tool on 17 March at their SENA19 booth, 289. According to a release from the company, the system will enable vessels to “hail quantities into the auction that can be sold via a real-time cloud-based platform, with transactions clearing simultaneously in milliseconds.”
“Increasing stories around seafood fraud are eroding consumer trust; we’re seeing repetitive cases where seafood is claimed to be from local waters when it is in fact imported,” Michael Carroll, CEO of Legit Fish, said in a release. “The technology we are bringing to the market changes all of that because our traceability system is verified with the official government harvest records. No one else is doing this.”
According to Legit Fish, the software will be able to trace seafood from the dock to the dinner table utilizing cloud-based software that creates chain of custody control, ensuring that the products are traceable throughout their journey.
The debut of the new technology comes just over a week after Oceana released a study showing mislabeling of species is continuing to be a problem. That situation is what Legit Fish is attempting to eradicate, said Carroll.
March 18, 2019 — Perhaps the third time will be the charm. We shall see.
State Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr is back with his bill that would permit processing of fresh and frozen lobsters in Massachusetts and cease the mandate to send Massachusetts-landed lobsters out of state for processing into parts.
The Senate passed the bill. But then the Senate passed the measure the previous two times it appeared on the calendar, only to have the House each time put the kibosh on it.
This year, Tarr and supporters of the bill took a different route. They attached the bill to a supplemental budget already passed by the House.
That means the bill, now before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, still has a chance to live on if it remains in the supplemental budget following the conference committee.
And it should.
As we’ve previously written, supporters have made a strong case that changing the law would provide expanded and more efficient markets for lobstermen, create jobs and other platforms of growth for the processing industry, help coastal communities, such as Gloucester, diversify their waterfront infrastructure, and provide consumers with more choices.
March 18, 2019 — East Coast Seafood won the 2019 “Best New Foodservice” Seafood Excellence Award for its Lobster Macaroni & Cheese Bites, and St. James Smokehouse was awarded the “Best New Retail” prize for its Saint Pure Salmon at Seafood Expo North America on Sunday, 17 March.
Topsfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based East Coast Seafood is the world’s largest distributor of live and frozen North American lobster. Its Lobster Macaroni & Cheese Bites, designed for the foodservice industry, are a creamy mixture of macaroni and a blend of parmesan, asiago, and mozzarella cheeses, within a crunchy golden-brown coating. The appetizers are produced without preservatives or artificial flavors and are designed to be deep-fried at the restaurant level.
“It was a complete surprise, we’re extremely excited about it and proud,” East Coast Seafood Vice President of Marketing Garrett Digney told SeafoodSource. “It’s been a great team effort for the item, and we’re extremely happy.”
March 18, 2019 — It was a weekend of hard work for global seafood product suppliers and processing vendors, who arrived in Boston, Massachusetts in anticipation of this year’s Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America event, taking place from 17 to 19 March.
Considered to be the largest seafood event in North America, the expo saw 1,329 exhibitors from 49 countries in attendance at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center for opening day on Sunday, 17 March.
More than 256,690 net square feet of exhibit space is being occupied at SENA19, event organizer Diversified Communications said, with new exhibitor participation from the country of Latvia and an array of companies including: Intershell International Corp, Plymouth Rock Oyster Growers, John Nagle Co, Pangea Shellfish Company, Cape Seafoods Inc., North Atlantic Pacific Seafood, Red’s Best, Aquacultural Research Corp., Independent Brazil, Dutch Seafood Company/Foppen/Klaas Puul, Niceland Seafood, and Top Claw Lobster & Seafood Limited.
March 18, 2019 — If all goes as planned, a Massachusetts biotechnology company will soon begin importing salmon eggs from a Canadian hatchery to its plant in Indiana, where they’ll grow into the first genetically modified salmon ever produced in the United States.
AquaBounty Technologies Inc. won approval for its long-delayed plan last week when federal regulators lifted an importation ban that had prohibited the eggs from entering the country.
But opponents, who deride the new salmon as “Frankenfish,” say the fight will go on and that they’ll ultimately block the company, either in the courts or Congress.
Critics fear the fish might escape and damage wild salmon, and they’re particularly angry that the federal government plans to allow the genetically engineered salmon to be made and sold in the United States without clearly marked labels. The fish’s proponents have said those critics are just being protective of the existing industry’s market share.
March 15, 2019 — The offshore wind gold rush has largely blown past the Gulf of Maine.
Not anymore.
German utility EnBW just joined a lobbying and trade group, Clean Energy New Hampshire. Normally, such a minor corporate move goes unremarked. But this one represents an important milestone: EnBW becomes the first offshore wind developer to publicly show an interest in developing waters near the New Hampshire coastline.
Bill White, EnBW’s North American managing director, says his company is also eyeing the wind potential in waters off Maine and northern Massachusetts. EnBW competed in the federal government’s December auction for offshore wind leases south of Martha’s Vineyard, but was outbid.
March 15, 2019 — Seafood buyers from 14 countries visited the city’s leading seafood companies on Friday.
Buyers from Asia, Europe and the Middle East toured BASE New England Seafood Auction, Bergie’s Seafood, Atlantic Capes Fisheries and East Coast Seafood. Countries represented on the tour included China, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom and Vietnam.
“As the most valuable commercial fishing port in the nation for the 18th year in a row, New Bedford is also home to 50-plus seafood processors,” said Ed Anthes-Washburn, executive director of the Port of New Bedford, in a statement. “More than a million pounds of seafood enters and exits the port on a daily basis, so it’s always a pleasure to showcase the port to potential international buyers”
The buyers are in Boston for the 2019 Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America, the largest seafood trade event in North America.
Food Export Northeast, a nonprofit export promotion group, sponsored the foreign buyer tour, which consisted of 19 “vetted serious buyers,” said Colleen Coyne, Seafood program coordinator for Food Export-Northeast.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times