Saving Seafood

Traceability in seafood chain about money, not just ethics

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 28, 2016) — A coalition of environmentalists and seafood industry professionals is campaigning to make the case that traceability in the seafood industry is about success in the marketplace as much as it’s about ethics.

Ocean conservation group Oceana, based in Washington, D.C., has assembled the contingent of fishermen, processors, wholesalers and others to make the case that customers will pay a premium for verifiable seafood. They seek to link customers with the backstory of the product, such as where the fish was caught, whether it was sustainably harvested and when it was brought ashore.

The group includes representatives from more than a dozen businesses, including Virginia oyster farmers, a Boston seafood distributor and the fishmonger for a D.C. restaurant group. It is making its case as federal regulators consider tightening seafood importation standards.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Proposed fishing framework: Something for everyone to hate

March 23, 2016 — NOAA Fisheries has opened the public comment period for the proposed management rule that includes withering cuts to several groundfish species and reductions in the overall level of at-sea monitoring (ASM) coverage for the beleaguered groundfish fleet.

It seems the proposed rule, also known as Framework 55, has a little bit of something for everyone to hate. They have until close of business on April 5 to submit their comments to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Environmental groups, such as Oceana, are bitterly criticizing the projected reduction in ASM for groundfish boats to about 14 percent from about 24 percent, saying the rule will “weaken the chances of recovery for this historic fishery.”

Fishermen point to the further reductions in what they already consider minuscule catch quotas and say those reductions — combined with the absorption of the costs for ASM — could finally be the management initiative that shutters the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery for good.

Savage quota cuts

The catch limits, set by the NOAA Fisheries for the 2016 fishing season that begins May 1, include savage cuts to the annual catch limits for gray sole (55 percent), Georges Bank cod (66 percent), northern windowpane flounder (33 percent) and Gulf of Maine yellowtail flounder (26 percent).

“We will not have a fishery as we know it anymore,” Vito Giacalone, policy director for the Northeast Seafood Coalition, said on Tuesday. “In fact, I think you can already make the case that we don’t have a fishery you can recognize now compared to any period in the past.”

Read the full story at The Gloucester Times

Private Sector Demonstrates that Seafood Traceability is Possible and Profitable

March 9, 2016 — Ordering seafood off a menu in your favorite restaurant or from your local grocery store’s seafood counter may not be as simple as you think. Right now, it is far too difficult for consumers to know basic facts about the seafood on their plates, such as what species of fish they are actually buying, where the fish is coming from, and how it was caught. The prevalence of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing around the world means that you might be eating an endangered species caught in a protected area, and seafood fraud – the mislabeling of seafood products – means you probably wouldn’t know if you were. Fortunately, a new report released this week by Oceana demonstrates that full-chain traceability for our seafood – a full accounting of its path from catch to consumption – is both achievable and beneficial.

Last month, the Obama administration’s Presidential Task Force on Combating IUU Fishing and Seafood Fraud released a proposed rule that requires traceability to the first point of entry into U.S. commerce for certain species considered “at risk” of these activities. While it is an encouraging sign that the administration is addressing the problems of IUU and seafood fraud, the actions proposed do not go far enough. The proposed rule is currently open for public comment until April 5. Ultimately, the final rule should expand the documentation requirements to all seafood and extend traceability throughout the entire seafood supply chain.

Consumers deserve accurate information about the origins of their seafood, and Oceana’s new report, Fish Stories: Success and Value in Seafood Traceability, demonstrates the feasibility of such a practice. Oceana’s report spotlights the efforts of more than 15 companies that are using traceability now. As the report details, full-chain traceability isn’t just possible; it’s a profitable option for businesses that helps their customers make responsible choices.

Read the full story at The Huffington Post

New Oceana Report Highlights Success and Value in Seafood Traceability

March 7, 2016 — WASHINGTON — Today, Oceana released a new report titled Fish Stories, showing the success and value in seafood traceability. The report, which highlights how seafood traceability benefits more than 15 companies interviewed along the supply chain – from fishermen and distributors to grocery stores and restaurants – was released at Seafood Expo North America in Boston.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here:http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160307006385/en/

“Traceability is the future of seafood,” said Beth Lowell, senior campaign director at Oceana. “Testimonials from these pioneers show that full-chain traceability isn’t just feasible, but that it’s also profitable. These businesses are telling the stories of their products, growing their seafood’s value, and establishing trust with their customers. Fishermen and wholesalers are able to earn more for their catch when they can tell the story of their fish, empowering consumers to make more informed decisions. The federal government should require boat-to-plate traceability for all seafood sold in the U.S. so that the entire supply chain can reap its benefits.”

Here are a few of their stories:

“We have learned that consumers care about where their fish comes from,” said Jared Auerbach, owner of Red’s Best in Boston, Massachusetts. “We built proprietary web-based software that starts at the point of unloading and makes it really easy for us to package the story of the catch so it stays with the fish throughout the supply chain.”

“Working directly with local growers, delivering product within 24 hours of harvest, and product traceability are all major components of our company’s success,” said Brad Blymier, founder and co-owner of War Shore Oyster Company in Onancock, Virginia. “Traceability of product is not a request, but rather an expectation of our customers. Empowering them with the knowledge of exactly where their shellfish was grown and harvested is an invaluable asset and has helped make War Shore Oyster Company a trusted supplier to the region’s top chefs, restaurants, grocers and shellfish connoisseurs.”

“Traceability in its simplest form is being able to see where the product is being caught and what stores or restaurants it ends up at,” said Reese Antley, vice president of Wood’s Fisheries in Port St. Joe, Florida. “However, Wood’s Fisheries sees traceability in a much more detailed way — we believe that you can’t have true sustainability and fishery improvements without traceability. For our customers, we are 100 percent transparent; if you want to know every step in the supply chain, it’s at your fingertips.”

“Seafood traceability allows the consumer to make factual decisions about their purchases,” said John Rorapaugh, director of sustainability at ProFish in Washington, D.C. “In turn, it allows our company to present the finest products, free of comparison to illegally harvested or inferior quality ones. Transparency is the key to a sustainable global food chain, and seafood traceability is a key component.”

Read the full story at KLTV

West Coast Sardine Populations, Long Sinking, Look Even Worse in Forecast

February 26, 2016 — Sardines off the West Coast have continued on a steep decline, with populations this summer forecast to be down 93 percent from a 2007 peak, according to a draft assessment from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The sardines are a key forage food for sea lions, salmon and many other species, as well as a source of income for commercial fishermen.

In some years, sardines have been worth from $10 million to more than $20 million annually to a West Coast fleet.

Last year, the sardine implosion was so severe that the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to call off the season that was scheduled to start in July for West Coast fleets, including those in Washington state.

This year, as the council meets this spring, it will have more bad news on sardines to review.

The stocks of sardines aged one year or older are forecast to be 64,422 metric tons, about a third lower than the 2015 assessment.

“Pacific sardines are an incredibly important economic and ecological ocean resource,” said Geoff Shester, a fishery scientist with Oceana, a marine conservation group. “Fishermen with lost income will suffer financially, and marine animals like California sea lion pups will face another year of fighting starvation.”

Albert Carter, of Ocean Gold Seafood in southwest Washington, said sardines are a significant part of the company business when populations are strong.

Carter, who serves on a Pacific Fishery Management Council advisory committee, said he has not had a chance to review the new sardine assessment. But he said if populations have continued to decline, he does not expect a 2016 season.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

Getting to the bottom of the ‘mislabelling’ issue

February 11, 2016 — Does your livelihood depend on seafood production? If so, it would naturally follow that mislabelling of that seafood after it leaves your hands is of utmost concern to you.

Wild capture and aquaculture sources of global seafood production share this concern about their product, but what are studies released late last year on seafood mislabelling and fraud really telling us?

Improved labeling

 

The most recent study carried out on seafood mislabelling in the European Atlantic region suggests the recent trend is downwards and one of the main causes is the widespread media attention paid to the issue in the last four years. This has led to higher consumer awareness and improved labelling in fish markets trying to save their reputation. Also contributing to recently measured low rates of mislabelling are the strict new seafood labelling laws set out by the EC/EU in December 2014. The study led by Labelfish scientist Stefano Mariani published in December 2015 claimed an overall mislabelling rate of just 4.9 % of 1,265 samples taken in 19 European cities.

The 285 samples taken in Brussels from March to July in 2015 in search of fraud is Oceana’s first foray into European sampling of seafood. The study – leading to headlines last November claiming 33.9% seafood fraud of fish in Brussels – was in fact the ocean advocacy group’s first study outside America exploring what they most often refer to as seafood fraud.

Read the full story from World Fishing & Aquaculture

Ocean activists, fishers and scientists differ on heavy anchovy declines

November 23, 2015 — A new, beautifully produced but troubling public service announcement from Oceana features “Glee” television actress and singer Jenna Ushkowitz diving with sea lions off Santa Barbara.

Fishing, she says, decimated Southern California’s historically booming stocks of Pacific sardine and Northern anchovy, a major food source for top ocean predators. Those stocks have dropped dramatically in the past decade, prompting reduced fishing quotas as starved sea lion pups and California brown pelican chicks die in record numbers.

“Sea lions rely on forage fish for survival. But years of overfishing have put this important food source in jeopardy,” Ushkowitz narrates while underwater footage shows her swimming through kelp. “Join Oceana and help protect forage fish in the Pacific. … We need to stop this and replenish.”

The West Coast’s leading fishery scientists, however, disagree. They believe the fish are most likely enduring natural population fluctuations and are on the cusp of making a big comeback.

Oceana, a nonprofit advocacy organization favored by celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio, insists that fishing is the primary problem. The group lobbied aggressively to close the West Coast anchovy fishery, delivering nearly 40,000 letters from concerned citizens nationwide to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a 14-member body that sets fishing policy for California, Oregon and Washington, before its meeting last week.

Read the full story at Daily Breeze

EU looks into reports of fake fish labeling in Brussels

November 3, 2015 — BRUSSELS (AP) – The European Union is looking into reports that cheap seafood is often mislabeled as choice fish in some of the Belgian capital’s fine restaurants and even in EU cafeterias.

The Oceana environmental group said Tuesday it found that 31.8 percent of seafood it tested in and around EU institutions in Brussels was a different fish than what was labeled on the menu. In the cafeterias of the EU, which sets fishery policies for the 28-nation bloc, the total amount of falsely labeled fish stood at 38 percent.

“We take this very seriously,” EU spokesman Alexander Winterstein said of the report.

Oceana said 95 percent of what was labeled Bluefin tuna – a fatty, sublime sushi favorite – was actually a less expensive species, served to make a hefty profit. In 13 percent of the cases, cod was also mislabeled and people sometimes were fed pangasius instead, a freshwater fish farmed in southeast Asia.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at New Jersey Herald

 

Diners Who Order ‘Wild’ Salmon Often Get Cheaper Substitute

October 28, 2015 — That wild Alaskan salmon you ordered the last time you ate out might not be wild — or even from Alaska.

That’s the finding of a study by the conservation group Oceana, which says nearly half of the country’s favorite fish may be mislabeled and priced too high in restaurants and stores when it’s out of season.

Researchers performed DNA testing on 82 salmon samples collected in Virginia, Washington, Chicago and New York in the winter of 2013-2014.

They found 43 percent of the samples were mislabeled. The most common switch — accounting for two-thirds of the cases — was selling farmed Atlantic salmon as the more expensive wild-caught product.

A similar study by Oceana during the summertime commercial fishing season, when wild salmon is plentiful, found only 7 percent was mislabeled, suggesting supply-and-demand fuels the phenomenon.

Most of the mislabeled fish was found in restaurants, not stores — probably because large supermarkets are required to provide more robust information about the fish they are selling, the group said.

Read the full story at NBC News

Bill targeting pirate fishing worldwide heads for presidential signature

October 22, 2015 — WASHINGTON — A bill aimed at taking down “pirate” fishing by keeping illegally caught fish out of U.S. ports is headed for President Barack Obama’s signature.

The Senate late Wednesday passed a bill aimed at giving the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Coast Guard greater enforcement capabilities to combat illegal and unregulated fishing, a multibillion-dollar problem for Alaska and the U.S. fishing industry.

The bill, which brings together such unlikely bedfellows as Republican lawmakers and Greenpeace, passed the Senate by a unanimous vote. The House passed the same legislation in July.

The bill has the backing of the White House, which determined in 2014 that new legislation was needed to implement a port agreement requiring member countries to reject ships that have illegal product onboard. The European Union, Australia, Chile and New Zealand have signed on, among other countries. Ten more are needed to reach the 25 required before the agreement takes effect, according to environmental group Oceana.

“This important legislation, which imposes added sanctions on countries whose vessels engage in IUU fishing, would provide our authorities the tools they need to fight back against these global criminals and ensure millions of pounds of illegally caught product never reach market,” said Alaska Rep. Don Young, a Republican who co-sponsored the House version of the bill.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News