Saving Seafood

Trump says tariffs will continue on Chinese imports

March 21, 2019 — U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday, 20 March that U.S. tariffs on imported products from China would continue, even as the two countries make strides toward resolving their trade issues.

Earlier this month, media reports indicated Chinese and American officials were close to a deal that would repeal the levies in exchange for China agreeing to purchase additional products. However, Trump’s comments to reporters outside the White House seemed to contradict, or at least dampen, those expectations.

“We’re talking about leaving them (on) for a substantial period of time,” Trump said. “We have to make sure that if we do the deal with China that China lives by the deal. Because they’ve had a lot of problems living by certain deals.”

The current trade war has hit the seafood industry particularly hard on both sides as China introduced a 25 percent tariff on American seafood imports last year, and the U.S. countered by hiking its tariffs on Chinese seafood imports by 10 percent.

The seafood industry has just been one of many that have suffered over the past year as a result of the tariffs. According to a report from four college economists published this month by the National Bureau for Economic Research, imports from targeted counties, not just China, dropped by nearly 32 percent, while American exports slumped by 11 percent. The end result being a USD 7.8 billion (EUR 6.9 billion) loss.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Maine lobster harvest topped 100m lbs again

January 23, 2019 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is still auditing its 2018 lobster catch and won’t issue a report until February, but department spokesperson Jeff Nichols has reportedly confirmed that the US state landed more than 100 million lbs for the eighth year in a row.

Speaking at the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference, in San Diego, California, last week, Keith Moores, president of Gloucester, Massachusetts-based frozen seafood supplier J.W. Bryce, estimated that Maine’s 4,500 harvesters landed about 119m lbs of lobster in 2018, an 8m lb increase over 2017, the Portland (Maine) Press Herald reported.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Restaurant trends emphasize fast casual, but seafood playing catch-up

January 22, 2019 — Trends indicate that Americans are spending more and more of their money on eating out, and an increasing proportion of the ever-larger restaurant spend is being done at fast-casual establishments.

Starting in 2010, Americans’ total spending on food away-from-home started to pull away from spending on food prepared and eaten at home, to the point that Americans spent USD 100 billion (EUR 88 billion) more on eating out in 2017 than on food at home.

“Food away from home started taking up [more of peoples’] food budgets,” Richard Barry, program manager for the National Fisheries Institute, at last week’s Global Seafood Market Conference in Coronado, California.

Among that dining-out experience, one restaurant segment saw the most explosive growth: Chain quick-service restaurants, also known as “fast casual” restaurants. Even during the 2007 to 2009 recession, the segment added thousands of new locations, and in 2015 the segment had more than 200,000 restaurants across the country, up from just over 150,000 in 2005.

“The big driver behind the foodservice segment is these chain quick-service restaurants,” Barry said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

‘Three-fold competition’ arises for tighter cod supplies as tariffs could invert haddock price gap

January 18, 2019 — According to figures released at the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference, world cod supply is expected to decline to 1.5 million metric tons in 2019, down from 1.59 million metric tons in 2018.

Todd Clark, a founder and partner at Endeavor Seafood, an importer and marketer of frozen seafood based in Newport, Rhode Island, said that there’s a downward supply trend in both Atlantic cod, driven by reductions out of the Barents Sea, and Pacific cod, where US supply has fallen somewhat in the Bering Sea and sharply in the Gulf of Alaska.

“There’s a steady decrease in both of these resources, really,” Clark said.

Looking at Atlantic cod supply in historical perspective, the resource, at 1.3 million metric tons in 2017, has fluctuated between a low of under 1 million metric tons in 2007 and a 2.75 million metric ton high seen in 1974.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Americans eating a lot more seafood, according to NFI’s new Top 10 list

December 14, 2018 — Americans ate over a pound more seafood per capita in 2017 than they did the year before, according to the latest figures shared in the National Fisheries Institute’s (NFI) annual list of the top 10 most consumed seafood species in the United States.

In 2017, Americans consumed 16 pounds of seafood per capita, an increase of 1.1 pounds from 2016 – a considerable hike, said NFI President John Connelly.

“More than a pound increase is substantial,” Connelly said in a prepared statement.

The pound-plus increase wasn’t the only eye-opening figure presented in this year’s list, either, Connelly noted. The new numbers suggest that seafood consumption in the United States may be diversifying beyond the usual suspects, he said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Atlantic Capes Fisheries Founder Danny Cohen Passes Away After Battle With Cancer

November 23, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Danny Cohen, the founder and CEO of Atlantic Capes Fisheries, passed away on Tuesday after battling cancer. He was 63-years-old.

Cohen started Atlantic Capes Fisheries after taking over a small fishing dock and several fishing boats that his father, Joseph Cohen, left to him. Over the years he served as Chairman of the National Fisheries Institute Scientific Monitoring Committee, and was a member of the NFI Clam Committee. He also worked with Rutgers University and founded Cape May Salt Oyster Company, “re-vitalizing the Delaware Bay oyster industry by growing disease resistant shellfish.”

National Fisheries Institute president John Connelly released the following statement on Cohen’s passing:

Danny Cohen, founder of Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc. was uniquely committed to both the sustainability of the resource and the sustainability of his employees.

Danny was influential in organizing efforts to promote the sustainable harvest of clams, scallops, and other seafood. He took a long-term view of the fisheries and encouraged a balance between industry and environment that would prove an instrumental equilibrium for crew, vessels, and the fish.

Even as Atlantic Capes grew to a multi-species company with dozens of boats, a fleet of trucks and hundreds of employees, his strategy and steady leadership remained the same.

Danny is remembered for serving as Chairman of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) Scientific Monitoring Committee and on the NFI Clam Committee.

His foresight, innovation, commitment, and his unforgettable laugh, will be missed.

Cohen is survived by his daughter Dorit, his sister Maxi, brother Barry and sister-in-law Ronnie, and his companion Sharon. A funeral will be held Sunday, November 25 at 10:30 a.m. at Shirat HaYam in Ventnor, NJ. Shiva will follow at Barry and Ronnie Cohen’s home in Linwood, NJ.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Studies: Omega-3s temper premature births, heart attacks

November 21, 2018 — New research linking omega-3 fatty acids with a reduced risk of cardiovascular diseases as well as the reduction of dangerous premature births is expected to have benefits for the seafood industry.

In a study of people who took Lovaza, a prescription omega-3 fish oil, researchers found that subjects were 28 percent less likely to suffer heart attacks than those taking a placebo. Additionally, people who ate fewer than 1.5 servings of fish weekly reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 19 percent when taking Lovaza.

The research was presented at the recent American Heart Association 2018 Scientific Sessions in Chicago, Illinois, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“The use of fish oil did not significantly reduce risk for those eating more seafood, but the average overall showed a reduced risk,” Dr. Tom Brenna, a professor of pediatrics, chemistry, and nutrition at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, and chair of Seafood Nutrition Partnership’s Scientific and Nutrition Advisory Council, told SeafoodSource. “The message here is, ‘If you don’t eat fish, take supplements.'”

Alongside the Lovaza study, a new Cochrane Review of 70 studies worldwide found that omega-3 fatty acids reduced dangerous preterm births by 42 percent.

The extensive review of published studies, which included 20,000 pregnant women, also revealed an 11 percent reduction in preterm births, and a 10 percent reduction in risk of having a low-birthweight baby. The researchers reviewed studies involving fish oil supplements as well as seafood.

“This study is further evidence that health professionals should be actively promoting fish and omega-3s among pregnant women as they have possibly the most to gain from eating more fish,” Jennifer McGuire, a registered dietitian for the National Fisheries Institute, told SeafoodSource.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

NFI Future Leaders seek donations for SeaShare

October 23, 2018 — The National Fisheries Institute’s Future Leaders program is seeking donations for SeaShare, a non-profit organized to enable the U.S. seafood industry to donate food and resources to hunger-relief efforts nationwide.

The Future Leaders program, founded and run by the seafood industry’s trade group, is designed to craft and promote young leaders in the industry through a year-long training program.

SeaShare Director of Development Kate Tomkins said the Future Leaders have conducted a SeaShare giving campaign since 2011.

“Like Future Leaders, SeaShare really represents the seafood industry, is aligned with seafood industry, and we both see ourselves as extensions of the industry giving back for hunger-relief,” Tomkins said.

Founded in 1994 and based in Bainbridge Island, Washington, U.S.A., near Seattle, SeaShare annually organizes the donation of more than two million pounds of seafood to food banks in as many as 30 states across the United States. Tomkins said in addition to seafood, the organization also accepts in-kind donations of cold storage and transportation, and has nearly 200 partners throughout the supply chain helping to get seafood to food banks.

“We want to continue to bring more seafood to more people throughout the country,” Tomkins said. “There are 42 million Americans who struggle with hunger. That number has not significantly changed since the end of the last financial crisis. People are still really struggling to meet their own basic needs, and we believe everyone should have access to highest-quality protein that’s out there.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Seafood industry leaders reviewing new USMCA trade pact

October 2, 2018 — The day after U.S. and Canadian government officials announced a deal on a new trade agreement, seafood industry leaders from the neighboring countries expressed optimism about the accord, albeit with some uncertainty as they still pore over the details.

Canada’s participation, which was confirmed late in the evening of 30 September, means a new deal will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, the accord governing trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico for the past two decades. In late August, Mexican and American officials had reached a tentative agreement on a new deal.

“Today, Canada and the United States reached an agreement, alongside Mexico, on a new, modernized trade agreement for the 21st Century: the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA),” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a joint statement with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. “USMCA will give our workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses a high-standard trade agreement that will result in freer markets, fairer trade, and robust economic growth in our region.  It will strengthen the middle class, and create good, well-paying jobs, and new opportunities for the nearly half billion people who call North America home.”

Officials from the Fisheries Council of Canada received a high-level briefing on the USMCA on 1 October.

“We look forward to this apparent deal to help heal our trading relationship with the US and lead to more trading opportunities in the future,” said Paul Lansbergen, council president, in an email to SeafoodSource.

The desire to revamp NAFTA has been one leg of a global trade strategy by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. That strategy has also included numerous proposals to raise tariffs on Chinese imports, including numerous seafood products, as the president seeks to reduce the trade deficit.

The National Fisheries Institute has lobbied heavily in recent months that tariffs on seafood products hurt U.S. jobs as the country imports more than 90 percent of the seafood Americans consume.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NFI president: American jobs are fueled by international trade in seafood

September 13, 2018 — The US’ National Fisheries Institute (NFI) has joined ‘Americans for Free Trade’, a multi-industry coalition aimed at opposing tariffs and highlighting the benefits of international trade.

Over 80 US trade associations representing thousands of businesses and workers announced the formation of the group, which will immediately join Farmers for Free Trade, the coalition backed by the nation’s largest ag commodity groups, in a multi-million dollar national campaign called Tariffs Hurt the Heartland.

The campaign will focus on telling the stories of the American businesses, farmers, workers and families harmed by tariffs through town-hall style events, grassroots outreach to Congress and the administration, social media, rapid response and digital advertising.

The campaign includes a geographically searchable map (TariffsHurt.com) that allows users to find stories of job losses, deferred investments, higher prices and other negative consequences for farmers and businesses in communities across the country impacted by tariffs.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News