June 3, 2021 — Russia’s pollock fishery was faced with an unprecedented season in 2021 as the nation’s products were shut out of Chinese ports – a sudden loss of the destination market for 60 percent of the country’s seafood exports.
The closure forced the fishery to look for new destinations for its products, raising existential questions about the future of Russia’s seafood trade strategy.
January 5, 2021 — The Russian Fishery Company (RFC) has announced that the company has been reinstated on the list of Marine Stewardship Council-certified pollock catchers, allowing it to produce and sell MSC-certified products once more.
RFC was ousted from Russia’s MSC client group, the Pollock Catchers Association (PCA), in the wake of the company proposing radical changes to the country’s fishery policies. Soon after, RFC sought remedy in court and had its ouster from the PCA suspended before regaining its membership in the PCA through court action.
October 8, 2020 — Radical proposals made by the Russian Fishery Company (RFC) on the development of the Russian seafood sector led to the loss of a Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification by the company.
In September, RFC was expelled from the Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) – the MSC’s client group in Russia. Now the company plans to apply for the certification independently.
November 29, 2018 — The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has granted independent auditor SAI Global an extra six months — until June 6 — to finish its final report on whether to grant certification to the menhaden fishery in the US’ Gulf of Mexico.
The report was due Dec. 6, in a little more than a week. However, in requesting more time, SAI Global had noted unforeseen delays that included “a new benchmark stock assessment”, “additional consultation”, “substantial stakeholder submittals” and the “development and revision of the client action plan”, reveals MSC’s letter approving the delay, sent Monday to lead auditor Ivan Mateo.
If the new June 6 deadline is not met, the MSC warns, the application must be withdrawn.
The note about receiving a “substantial” number of stakeholder comments is interesting as several groups, including the Gulf Restoration Network (GRN) and Recirculating Farms Coalition (RFC), have let their opposition to MSC certification of the Gulf menhaden fishery be known. The fishery currently maintains no limits on its harvest of menhaden, which is a forage fish relied upon heavily by numerous other fish and bird species.
“Notably, the MSC label has become a well-known marker for fisheries that strive for sustainability,” said Marianne Cufone, RFC’s executive director, and Cynthia Sartou, GRN’s executive director, in a jointly signed letter sent earlier to the accrediting organization. “To certify gulf menhaden, with its lack of transparency and information, would most certainly tarnish MSC’s reputation and weaken public confidence in the label.”
November 20, 2018 — The prices for all forms of pollock look set to continue to increase next year, sources in the US, Russia, China and Europe told Undercurrent News.
Prices for pin-bone out (PBO) blocks, double-frozen fillet blocks, and the headed and gutted (H&G) raw material the latter is based on, all look set for higher levels in 2019, having already firmed in 2018, the sources said.
During the China Fisheries & Seafood Expo, held Nov. 7-9 in a venue close to Qingdao, ex-warehouse prices of around $3,500 per-metric-ton were being discussed for PBO blocks for A season. Prices for B season of 2018 were done around $3,350/t. Also, double frozen fillet block prices of around $3,200/t are also being discussed for next year.
“We see the price of $3,500/t reached and confirmed and we will take it up from there,” Fedor Kirsanov, CEO of Russian Fishery Company (RFC), told Undercurrent at the show, of the situation with PBO. US suppliers and also a large European buyer confirmed this level.
The level in the A season of 2018 was around $3,000/t (see image below and use the Undercurrent prices portal for interactive data), a leap from the very low level of around $2,350/t hit in the B season of 2017, as the price bottomed out. The pace of the increase has shocked buyers, but producers have been quick to point out this is only a return to a historical norm.
“We felt the fall was pretty quick. Now, it’s going more back to normal. It’s also not like pollock has gone off the charts. It’s back to a level where everyone can make money. It’s going back to a level where producers can make investments,” Tom Enlow, CEO of UniSea — a pollock, cod and crab processing plant in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, which is owned by Japan’s Nippon Suisan Kaisha (Nissui) — told Undercurrent.
The speed of the price increase has been driven by new markets taking the fish, he said.
“When the prices were very low, the producers looked at new markets. There has been more focus on deepskin for Asia and also surimi. Demand for surimi has been very strong, due to the shortfall in warmwater surimi,” the Nissui executive said. “The shortage in warmwater is the reason Thailand is so hot at the moment for surimi. Also, Japan is stable, but they take almost half of the surimi the US produces.”
Read the full story at Undercurrent News