January 9, 2020 — Members of the Russia-based Longline Fishery Association (LFA) have earned Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for their Pacific halibut and Pacific cod fisheries in three zones of the Bering Sea.
Six fisheries got certificates: Interrybflot, YAMSy, Polaris, Sigma Marine Technology, Tymlatsky rybokombinat, and Dalrybprom. The certification covers the Chukchi, West Bering Sea, and East Kamchatka fishery zones of the Bering Sea.
December 18, 2019 — The combined turnover of Russia’ top 10 seafood companies is RUB 238 billion ($3.80bn), according to a ranking of the top owners and firms in the sector from Forbes.
Forbes last ranked the top companies in the sector in 2017, but focused on volume then. However, for the 2019 edition, turnover is the metric used, with Norebo Holding coming out on top, with almost $1bn in turnover. Forbes also estimates 2 million metric tons of quota has been allocated to the top 10 companies in 2019.
According to Forbes, Vitaly Orlov and his Norebo are the largest player in the sector, with turnover of RUB 58.2bn ($929.45m). Norebo, which is the subject of a bitter legal dispute in the UK’s High Court of Justice, spent about $600m to buy competitors in the North-West and Far East in 2011-2013, according to Forbes.
December 3, 2019 — The total allowable catch (TAC) for US Pacific cod will drop again in 2020 and beyond, as Russia increases its TAC way past the Alaskans and also has now Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for a large chunk of its fishery.
Alaska’s Pacific cod biomass is down considerably in 2020 and will drop further in 2021, according to the draft stock assessment and fisheries evaluation (SAFE) report on stocks in the eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, which will be discussed Monday at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) meeting, held from Dec. 2-10, 2019, at the Hilton Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska.
At the end of the meeting, TACs for Pacific cod, pollock and other species will be recommended to the government. According to historical catch data, the last time Russia had a higher Pacific cod catch than the US and Canada was 1987, when it was 175,271t compared to 150,591t.
November 14, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Russia may face a shortage of salmon during the next several years, due to climate change and overproduction seen in recent years, according to recent statements from leading local analysts in the field of fishing and state officials.
The biggest decline of salmon catch is expected in the Sakhalin Islands, which is a main harvest area for salmon in Russia.
The news was confirmed by recent predictions of the Sakhalin branch of the All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography. They say the overall stock of pink salmon in the Sakhalin water zone will be insignificant during the 2020 fishing season.
In this regard, the total salmon catch at Sakhalin until the end of the current year will not exceed 7,000 tonnes. This is significantly lower than the annual catch levels for the 2000s, which varied between 140,000 and 160,000 tonnes.
Scientists believe global warming, which leads to the increase of the number of typhoons in the world’s oceans could be considered a major reason for the decline in the number of pink salmon in Russian territorial waters. Another reason is warming waters, which leads to the decline of the stock of northern plankton.
In addition to Sakhalin, the decline of the salmon stock is currently being observed in the Kuril Islands.
The Russian government is aware of the problem and considering approaches for a solution. One of them is to introduce catch restrictions on salmon in both Sakhalin and Kuril Islands. This, according to state plans, should create conditions for the recovery of its stock in these areas.
This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
November 4, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — From Ecuadorian shrimp to Russian king crab, getting a taste of the ocean has never been easier these days for many Chinese. But for exporters trying to tap into this fast-growing seafood market, they need more than just quality products.
At the China Fisheries and Seafood Expo (CFSE), which runs from Wednesday to Friday in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong Province, exporters around the world are bringing out their best to woo increasingly sophisticated Chinese customers.
“Chinese consumers at home may not barbecue or bake fish in the style of Americans or Europeans. Instead, they may put it into hotpot or even in steamed dishes,” said Jeff Welbourn, senior director of new business development of China for Trident Seafoods, a U.S.-based seafood company.
“We should be sensitive to the way people eat fish here and make sure we develop the products that are exciting to Chinese consumers,” he said.
To meet the demand of health-conscious Chinese consumers, the company strives to ensure product quality from source to plate, using supply chain management to win over the rapidly growing and diverse Chinese market, according to Welbourn.
As China’s middle-class population grows, more people now crave a diversified menu on their dining tables, leading to an increasing demand for high-quality seafood.
The rapid development of e-commerce added to seafood’s popularity, with companies such as JD.com and Alibaba promising to deliver fresh seafood to the doorsteps of major city households within hours.
For global exporters, China’s growing appetite for seafood means opportunities. In the first eight months of this year, China’s seafood imports surged 24.8 percent year on year in U.S. dollar terms, official data showed.
“China is such a big market that there is room for everyone,” said Roberto Coronel Kronfle, of Industrial Pesquera Santa Priscila, an Ecuadorian shrimp company.
The firm is expected to see more than 70 percent of its total sales this year coming from China, Coronel said.
Santa Priscila’s booth at the CFSE neighbors several other Ecuadorian shrimp exporters, all of which were often surrounded by importers inquiring about quotations.
To win over the buyers, each firm has developed its own tactics. Jose Luis Salvador, a sales manager for Ecuadorian shrimp exporter Alimesa, said that the company’s competitive advantage lies in quality control as well as a commitment to deliver on time.
“Every client needs a certain date for shipment. That is very important now, so we have to be prepared and pack everything on time according to our selected partners’ needs. We need to comply with what was agreed,” he said.
For some companies, the key to success in China is about focusing on a niche market. Future Cuisine, a producer and exporter of premium New Zealand seafood, is targeting consumers that crave the best with its export of king salmon, a rare species of salmon.
“Now more and more Chinese travel to New Zealand and can get a taste of king salmon that they will never forget. People do taste the difference,” said Sophia Liu, general manager of the company’s China operations.
For others, the trick is about packaging. Vivian Zhang, general manager of KONO Pure NZ Trading (Shanghai), a subsidiary of Kono, a green shell mussels producer and exporter in New Zealand, said the firm designed a smaller packaging of mussels specifically for the Chinese market to cater to the demand of retail customers, who often like to buy online.
“Chinese consumers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. It is an opportunity that we can not afford to miss out on,” she said.
This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
October 18, 2019 — A portion of the Russian longline Pacific cod and halibut fishery has been certified as sustainable to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard, meaning the country’s catchers are set to further target the European and US markets.
The approval took place on Oct. 9 and this means all cod and halibut from the certified management areas caught after Aug. 1 this year can be sold as MSC certified, Sergey Sennikov, director of sustainability for Norebo Holding, Russia’s largest fishing company, during the 2019 Groundfish Forum in Berlin, Germany.
“We can target Europe and the US as well, as Pacific cod is well known in the US. It’s about having more access to the market,” he said. This places Russian Pacific cod more closely in competition with product from the US. The US fishery has been MSC certified for many years, but catch allocations have been coming down.
According to the public certification report on the Russian fishery, the portion of the total allowable catch (TAC) for Pacific cod covered by the MSC approval is 31.8%. The report only gives a TAC for 2016-2017, which was 140,000 metric tons, meaning 25,200t of this would be eligible for sale as MSC-approved.
October 17, 2019 — The population of cod in the Northern Bering Sea has increased immensely since 2010, and scientists are using fish DNA to find out why.
Think of it like a genetic ancestry test, but for fish.
Until recently, pacific cod were rarely found in the Northern Bering Sea. A 2010 survey showed cod made up only three percent of the entire fish population. That’s been changing, fast.
A survey in the summer of 2017 showed that number shot up 900 percent.
Ingrid Spies is a research fisheries biologist who led the way on this research to determine whether the population spike is evidence of a growing population or of an existing population migrating from elsewhere?
One thought was that cod could have migrated from Russia or the Gulf of Alaska, where they observed cod numbers decline significantly in 2017. Scientists were able to come to a conclusive answer to the question using genetic testing.
September 24, 2019 — Russia’s government may consider dropping the restrictions imposed by federal law on fishing by non-Russian companies in the country’s waters.
Russia’s Federal Fisheries Agency Head Ilya Shestakov’s – at a discussion panel he was chairing titled “The capitalization of the fishery industry” at the third Global Fishery Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia – suggested potentially changing federal laws to allow foreign companies into Russia’s fishing industry. The comments came amid growing criticism by industry players over crab quota auctions introduced by the government and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin earlier this year.
August 21, 2019 — Norwegian salmon farmers cannot claim strong demand has brought spot prices up in recent years, given the size of the hole in the market left by Russia’s import ban, according to new claims from US plaintiffs filing a price-fixing suit.
A total of six US distributors are listed on the latest filing, made on Aug. 19, claiming that Norway’s farmers have colluded to charge higher prices for salmon.
Plaintiffs Euclid Fish Company, Euro USA, Schneider’s Fish and Sea Food Corporation, Beacon Fisheries, Cape Florida Seafood, The Fishing Line, and Hesh’s Seafood — “individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated” — have suit several salmon farmers alleging they were damaged by “price collusion”.
The full list of defendants in the US lawsuit are: Norway’s Mowi — and its North American subsidiaries Marine Harvest USA, Marine Harvest Canada and Ducktrap River of Maine; Norway-based Grieg and its British Columbia, Canada, arm, Grieg Seafood BC; Norway’s Bremnes Seashore as well as Ocean Quality, Ocean Quality North America, Ocean Quality USA and Ocean Quality Premium Brands, entities that are a partnership between Bremnes and Grieg; SalMar; Leroy and Leroy Seafood USA; and Scottish Sea Farms, a venture jointly owned by SalMar and Leroy.
May 16, 2019 — When ice failed to cover much of the eastern Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia in early 2018, oceanographer James Overland chalked it up to a freak chance. Then, it happened again this year, with late-winter sea ice falling to some of the lowest levels seen in at least 4 decades.
Now, scientists are studying whether this is the meteorological equivalent of drawing the ace of spades twice in a row, or another sign of the systemic changes sweeping the Arctic as a result of climate change. “I’m not ruling out that we really have a new regime over the Bering Sea,” says Overland, who works at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) in Seattle, Washington.
A lasting shift could dramatically transform a region with some of the nation’s most valuable fisheries and indigenous communities whose way of life relies on ice. Already scientists have documented changes in algae as well as zooplankton, fish, and seabird populations. The shifts are “a bit of a warning sign that these things can happen rather quickly,” says Robert Foy, the Juneau-based science and research director for NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which is headquartered in Seattle.