Saving Seafood

USDA’s Alaska pollock bid is third-largest in agency’s history

May 6, 2021 — The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released a bid solicitation for 8.3 million pounds of Alaska pollock fish sticks and fillets for use in the National School Lunch Program and other Federal Food and Nutrition Assistance Programs.

The bid asks for more Alaska Pollock than USDA has ever purchased in an entire year besides 2017, 2019 and 2020, Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) CEO Craig Morris told IntraFish.

The products will be distributed to several states throughout the United States.

Acceptances will be announced by May 26. Deliveries are to be made between July 1 of this year through Feb. 28 of next year.

Read the full story at IntraFish

USDA to make big purchase of Alaska pollock

May 5, 2021 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is asking Alaska pollock suppliers to bid on a contract for 8.325 million pounds of the fish – the third-largest bid invitation for Alaskan pollock in the agency’s history.

The USDA is also requesting bids on nearly 2.7 million pounds of catfish and said in a pre-solicitation notice that it plans to purchase canned tuna, haddock fillets, ocean perch fillets, wild salmon fillets, and canned pink salmon.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Fish Sticks Make No Sense

April 26, 2021 — There are many curious facts about fish sticks. The invention of this frozen food warranted a U.S. patent number, for instance: US2724651A. The record number of them stacked into a tower is 74. And, every year, a factory in Germany reportedly produces enough fish sticks to circle Earth four times.

But the most peculiar thing about fish sticks may be their mere existence. They debuted on October 2, 1953, when General Foods released them under the Birds Eye label. The breaded curiosities were part of a lineup of newly introduced rectangular foods, which included chicken sticks, ham sticks, veal sticks, eggplant sticks, and dried-lima-bean sticks. Only the fish stick survived. More than that, it thrived. In a world in which many people are wary of seafood, the fish stick spread even behind the Cold War’s Iron Curtain.

Beloved by some, merely tolerated by others, the fish stick became ubiquitous—as much an inevitable food rite of passage for kids as a Western cultural icon. There’s an entire South Park episode devoted to riffing off the term fish stick, and the artist Banksy featured the food in a 2008 exhibit. When Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 90th birthday, in 2016, Birds Eye presented her with a sandwich that included blanched asparagus, saffron mayonnaise, edible flowers, caviar, and—most prominently—gold-leaf-encrusted fish sticks.

Paul Josephson, the self-described “Mr. Fish Stick,” is probably best at explaining why the fish stick became successful. Josephson teaches Russian and Soviet history at Colby College, in Maine, but his research interests are wide ranging (think sports bras, aluminum cans, and speed bumps). In 2008, he wrote what is the defining scholarly paper on fish sticks. The research for it required him to get information from seafood companies, which proved unexpectedly challenging. “In some ways, it was easier to get into Soviet archives having to do with nuclear bombs,” he recalls.

Josephson dislikes fish sticks. Even as a kid, he didn’t understand why they were so popular. “I found them dry,” he says. Putting aside personal preference, Josephson insists that the world didn’t ask for fish sticks. “No one ever demanded them.”

Instead, the fish stick solved a problem that had been created by technology: too much fish. Stronger diesel engines, bigger boats, and new materials increased catches after the Second World War. Fishers began scooping up more fish than ever before, Josephson says. To keep them from spoiling, fishers skinned, gutted, deboned, and froze their hauls on board.

Read the full story at The Atlantic

ALASKA: Commercial and subsistence harvesters speak out against trawler bycatch of Chinook salmon

April 22, 2021 — Alaska’s commercial fishermen have been speaking out against big trawlers for years, complaining that the large vessels in federal waters are scooping up mature and juvenile fish. The regional council that manages federal fisheries recently heard from hundreds concerned about the number of salmon and other species that end up as bycatch in trawl nets.

For Alaska’s troll fleet, king salmon is their money fish. In state waters, small crews on these 40 to 50-foot boats — or even small skiffs — will catch a fish at a time, and it’s worth it: Chinook salmon can fetch $6 a pound from a processor.

But there’s another big-money fish in Alaska: Pollock. It’s the white fish found in a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish® or an imitation crab stick. And the factory trawlers that ply the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska in search of pollock and other groundfish scoop up Chinook salmon and other species in their wide nets.

Federal fisheries data show trawlers in the North Pacific took about a tenth of the Chinook — or king salmon — caught by Alaska’s commercial salmon fleet last year. And those numbers are tracking the same this year. But none of that catch happens on purpose.

Preliminary ADF&G data show about 263,000 kings were commercially harvested last year statewide. As of last week (April 15), bycatch in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska areas for 2021 was around 16,000 fish, over six percent of last year’s statewide commercial harvest. Last year’s trawler bycatch was 26,000 kings, or about a tenth of the 2020 commercial Chinook harvest in-state.

Read the full story at KSTK

Alaska Fisheries Science Center 2020 Year in Review

March 22, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The Alaska Fisheries Science Center was able to accomplish a lot in FY 2020 despite the need to cancel some important field research and fish, crab and marine mammal surveys due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was a year of perseverance, creative thinking, and flexibility.

Our scientists took major steps to adjust the way we do business, protecting staff, communities and research partners while delivering critical science to support resource management and conservation efforts in FY20-21.

Some Highlights:

  • Set up makeshift, home-based labs to conduct critical process studies to provide age and diet information to inform fish and marine mammal stock assessments.
  • Employed innovative technologies to collect and more efficiently analyze data safely (e.g., sea going and aerial drones, artificial intelligence, remote camera and underwater acoustic monitoring systems, and sophisticated camera systems that simultaneously collect color, infrared, and ultraviolet images, etc.)
  • Substantially overhauled standard operating procedures to work with fisheries observer provider companies to deploy Federal fisheries observers on fishing vessels and in seafood processing facilities to collect needed data so fisheries could continue to operate and provide seafood to the nation and the world throughout the pandemic
  • Designed new modeling approaches to estimate fish and crab abundance to account for data limitations due to some cancelled surveys and research activities
  • Provided critical socio-economic analyses of COVID-related impacts on the commercial and recreational fishing industries
  • Increased collaboration with research, co-management and industry partners to monitor and collect data safely for bowhead whales, humpback whales, harbor seals, gray whales, Steller sea lions, northern fur seals, California sea lions, and commercially valuable pollock, red king crab and sablefish
  • Organized and safely supported a major ecosystem survey in the Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea during the pandemic
  • Completed a successful environmental DNA (eDNA) proof of concept in the inshore waters around Juneau, AK
  • Enlisted the help of state and academic scientists, Alaska Indigenous communities, private companies and others to collect ecosystem information and provide critical context for resource management decisions this year

Read the full release here

7-Eleven partners with GAPP on Alaska Pollock Fish Bites

March 10, 2021 — 7-Eleven has rolled out Wild Alaskan Pollock Fish Bites for the Lenten season in a limited-time capacity.

The offering includes five bite-sized morsels of herb panko-crusted Alaskan pollock filets served on a skewer, with a side of tartar sauce for dipping. The bites are priced at USD 3.69 (EUR 3.10) daily, and USD 3 (EUR 2.52) on Fridays for 7Rewards members.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Gorton’s adapting itself to new seafood’s new retail reality

March 3, 2021 — Gorton’s Seafood is stepping up production and is embarking on a new marketing campaign to cement the significant sales growth it garnered through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the past year, Gorton’s retail sales surged 34 percent, with its breaded and battered wild Alaska pollock entrees snaring the highest sales increases, Kurt Hogan, the president and CEO of the Gloucester, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based processor, told SeafoodSource.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US Alaska pollock consumption declines in 2020 despite meteoric rise in frozen food sales

March 1, 2021 — A meteoric global rise of frozen Alaska pollock consumption during the course of 2020 could not make up for an overall decrease in pollock consumption by US consumers compared to the previous year.

That’s largely due to reduced imports as well as a smaller catch for domestic product during the year. Alaska pollock producers ended B season last year leaving nearly 65,000 fish in the water due to several challenging factors, including less-valuable fish sizes and a biomass widely dispersed across the grounds

While consumption declined by 11 percent in 2020 to 0.873 pounds per person from 2019 levels of 0.983 pounds per person, the overall US per capita consumption of pollock was still well above 2018’s level of 0.717 pounds per person, according to the Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers’ (GAPP).

“Despite this slight decline in 2020, the jump in the percentage of domestically-caught fish makes it clear that US consumers are trying, loving and gravitating towards our Wild Alaska Pollock like never before,” said GAPP CEO Craig Morris.

Read the full story at IntraFish

Preliminary Results of e-DNA Study Shows Promise for Improving Understanding of Nearshore Habitats for Fish and Crabs in Alaska

February 25, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Many marine fish and crab species spend their critical early development stages of life in shallow, coastal waters. Scientists at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s Auke Bay Laboratories conducted a pilot study using environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques in 2020. They identified more than 40 species in nine sites around Juneau, Alaska.

Every marine organism sheds small amounts of tissue and waste into the water. This material potentially contains eDNA from the source organism. Genetic analysis of the eDNA can help us to identify species and detect the diversity of species. It can also possibly determine the abundance of each species that have been present in the water sample even days after the organism has left the area. Environmental DNA can complement traditional surveys that are able to identify the age or size of a species.

The major objective of this study was to demonstrate that eDNA metabarcoding represents a feasible and cost-effective alternative to traditional sampling for collecting species diversity data and identifying Essential Fish Habitat (EFH). While eDNA has been used to assess biodiversity in many environments, it is important to verify the technique and compare it to data collected from traditional surveys to ensure that results are robust. This is especially important in dynamic environments such as those found in Alaska, where variables such as large tidal swings and severe weather can influence eDNA transport and detection.

“There are so many ways eDNA research can help us do our jobs better,” said Wes Larson, program manager, Genetics Laboratory. “We are able to detect a fish after it has left an area. It is also a less invasive means for sampling habitats that enables us to detect cryptic fish. Cryptic fish are fish that may not typically be sampled in traditional survey gear or may be a rare or low-density organism that surveys miss. Additionally, eDNA can help us detect important pelagic fish like cod and pollock that may be offshore and could avoid smaller nets. ”

Read the full release here

Alaska pollock stepping onto bigger stage for Lent

February 25, 2021 — U.S. quick-service restaurants are banking heavily on Lent for a lift as the foodservice sector continues to battle through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fish sandwiches have been popular additions to many menus in advance of the Lenten season, and Dairy Queen has become the latest chain to add a pollock fish sandwich, the Wild Alaskan Fish Sandwich, which includes a fried wild pollock fillet, lettuce, and tangy tartar sauce on a toasted bun. In addition, Jack in the Box’s new Deluxe Fish Sandwich features two fillets of wild Alaska pollock covered in crispy panko bread crumbs, along with cheese, tomato and tartar sauce, per Chew Boom. And Bojangles recently brought back its Bojangler fish sandwich, made with wild Alaskan pollock, while Wienerschnitzel’s reprised its Fish ’N Chips dish, which includes panko-crusted Alaskan pollock with french fries and tartar sauce.

Read the full story at Seafood Source