Saving Seafood

Seafood industry awaits details before celebrating ‘phase one’ US-China deal

January 17, 2020 — The US and China may have reached the interim trade agreement that loosely promises to commit China to purchasing more US seafood products, but the seafood industry is keeping its party hats and noisemakers in the drawer.

In a ceremony held Wednesday at the White House, US president Donald Trump and China vice premier Liu He signed the so-called “phase one” trade deal that has been described as hitting the pause button on a two-year trade war that has devastated the US agriculture and seafood industries.

The deal, which is expected to take effect in mid-February and spelled out in an 86-page document, commits China to buying $200 billion worth of additional US products, goods and services over the next two years, reducing the US’ bilateral trade deficit in goods, which hit $420 billion in 2018. It removes planned US tariffs on Chinese cellphones, toys and laptops, as well as halving the existing tariffs on approximately $120bn worth of Chinese goods, the Financial Times recounts.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

NFI blasts Dr. Oz Show for linking shrimp to antibiotics, slave labor, and microplastics

November 12, 2019 — The National Fisheries Institute is sharply criticizing an episode of the Dr. Oz Show linking shrimp and antibiotics, slave labor, and microplastics.

In the episode, which aired on 11 November, show host Mehmet Oz interviews Paul Greenberg, author of “American Catch” and “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food,” about the safety and healthfulness of eating shrimp.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NFI launches pro-seafood YouTube channel

October 23, 2019 — The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) on Tuesday announced the creation of the new YouTube channel, AboutSeafood, which is designed to educate health care professionals and consumers about the role of seafood in the diet. NFI’s registered dietitian, Jennifer McGuire, hosts the channel.

“Seafood is one of the healthiest foods on the planet, yet confusion still exists about how much to eat, what pregnant women and children’s seafood diets should look like, and how fish fits into an overall eating pattern,” said McGuire.

The core videos on the channel feature McGuire with expert guests. “Through conversations with colleagues in the nutrition space, we hope to debunk myths and provide clarity about seafood.”

The channel also offers shorter videos in which McGuire shares quick facts about seafood nutrition.

Read the full story at IntraFish

SeaShare, NFI Future Leaders hold national day of giving to fight hunger with seafood

October 15, 2019 — SeaShare – a nonprofit organization devoted to partnering with the seafood industry to get seafood into various foodbanks – and the National Fisheries Institute’s (NFI) Future Leaders program is holding a national day of giving on 16 October.

SeaShare donates seafood through a national network of food banks, known as Feeding America, in order to provide thousands of people struggling with hunger with healthy proteins. Partners throughout the seafood industry provide funding and seafood to give nutritious meals to some of the 41 million Americans that struggle with hunger.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US retailer Publix audits seafood suppliers’ sustainability answers

October 11, 2019 — Publix Super Markets, a Lakeland, Florida-based retailer with more than 1,200 locations in seven southern US states will begin, in 2020, to “reverse audit” some of its many seafood suppliers for their sustainability claims.

“We expect them to be in compliance and [to] find no errors,” Guy Pizzuti, the company’s seafood category manager, told Undercurrent News in a recent email exchange.

The reverse audit process will take an item code and lot number and work backwards through the system, he explained. In instances where aquaculture-related suppliers are found out of compliance, the company will meet with both the supplier and the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) program, he said.

“Corrective actions would be submitted, audits would be increased, and [the] business would be reduced or eliminated [from the supplier list] pending any further issues. BAP will be asked to demonstrate findings to both Publix and the supplier.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Tariffs changing shopping habits of US consumers

August 16, 2019 — More U.S. shoppers are noticing price increases for the products they buy regularly, and a majority of them plan to reexamine their shopping habits if U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods remain in place, according to a new survey.

Shopkick, the operator of a shopping rewards app, surveyed more than 30,000 of its users between 28 and 30 June, and found 44 percent of respondents planned to cut down on their shopping as a result of raised prices on consumer goods, the result of tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on practically all Chinese goods, valued at more than USD 550 billion (EUR 495.6 billion) in annual trade.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

SIMP helping to drive seafood’s blockchain moment

June 24, 2019 — It’s not your imagination. The seafood industry is talking a lot more than usual about Bitcoin these days.

But don’t worry. There’s no effort afoot to launch a new form of seafood-themed cryptocurrency — though “Fishscales” would have a nice ring to it.

Rather, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s implementation of its new Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) requirements is helping to drive a great deal of interest in blockchain, the digital technology that underlies Bitcoin, Sean O’Scannlain, the president and CEO of Fortune Fish & Gourmet, told Undercurrent News in a telephone interview this week.

Besides running one of the US’ largest seafood wholesalers, O’Scannlain is also chairman of the Seafood Industry Research Fund (SIRF), a 55-year-old group that has provided almost $4 million in grants to help create about 400 research papers, all publicly available. Roughly a week ago, the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) announced that SIRF would be launching a pilot aimed at enabling the industry to better use blockchain, increasing transparency, optimizing supply chain processes and combating fraud.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

The Beyond Meat of Fish Is Coming

June 13, 2019 — Salmon has become the guinea pig of the seas when it comes to using technology to supplement falling fish populations. Now it’s moved onto land—and into the laboratory.

The fatty orange fish was the second-most-consumed seafood in the U.S. in 2017, after shrimp, and per capita consumption increased 11 percent, to 2.41 pounds per person, from the prior year, according to the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group. Globally, demand for salmon has skyrocketed, along with that for all fish, fueling overfishing and threatening supply.

Industrial-scale salmon farming, once seen as a solution, has its own problems. Massive stocks of smaller fish are depleted to feed farmed salmon, and parasites flourish in salmon pens where farmers use pesticides, contributing to pollution and ecosystem destruction. Sea lice have infested farms in Norway and Scotland in recent years, and a deadly algae bloom killed salmon in Chile, a top farmed-salmon producer. Farmed fish sometimes escape, too, contaminating nearby wild salmon.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

NFI, SIRF partner on seafood blockchain pilot with IBM

June 12, 2019 — The National Fisheries Institute (NFI), with financial support from the Seafood Industry Research Fund (SIRF), announced 11 June it is partnering with IBM’s Food Trust to create a blockchain-based seafood supply chain traceability program.

NFI is the largest U.S. seafood industry trade group. IBM’s Food Trust is a blockchain-based system that creates a shared record of food data, and that system will introduced to NFI members. Members – including harvesters, importers, processers, cold storage, foodservice restaurants, and retailers – are all involved with the program.

“We are excited that NFI and the real seafood value-chain will test IBM’s technology,” NFI President John Connelly said.  “NFI members’ supply chains are dynamic and wide-reaching, a fertile ground for this type of pilot.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

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