Saving Seafood

Scottish seafood industry seeks government support in wake of Brexit fallout

January 20, 2021 — Scottish Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing has pressed the United Kingdom’s government to increase its support for the Scottish seafood sector as it struggles to come to terms with the challenges of trying to export products to European Union markets following the introduction of the new Brexit trade agreement on 1 January.

U.K. exporters have faced lengthy delays in transporting goods to Continental Europe due to the new customs and export certification requirements laid out by the terms of the non-tariff barriers in the trade agreement. With the COVID-19 pandemic already affecting both national and international trade, and also significantly curtailing the hospitality trade, this latest obstacle has caused considerable additional concern for those moving seafood and other perishable products, Ewing said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

UK government blamed for seafood border disruptions

January 13, 2021 — The inability of the U.K. government to establish a trade agreement with the E.U. well before the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December, 2020, and a failure to include a bedding-in period that would have allowed exporters to adjust to the new demands, are the main reasons why seafood businesses are encountering disruptions at the border, according to Scottish Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing.

On 24 December, negotiators from the E.U. and the U.K. reached an agreement on a new partnership, which set out the rules that have applied between the two parties since 1 January, 2021. It covers such areas as trade in goods and services, fisheries, ensuring a level playing field, internal security, and the U.K.’s participation in E.U. programs, Ewing said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Scotland’s Seafood Industry Is Already Reeling from Brexit

January 12, 2021 — By ending a 27-year-old union, Brexit was sure to come with some growing pains. But with less than two weeks under their belt, some in the Scottish fishing industry are wondering if what they’re feeling is more akin to death throes.

As Reuters reported on Friday, the additional red tape caused by the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU has led to major issues for the Scottish fishing industry which has relied on seamless next-day transport of fresh seafood to customers on the European mainland. Since Brexit became official on January 1, shipping Scottish langoustines, scallops, oysters, lobsters, and mussels to places like France, Belgium, and Spain has suddenly been slower and more expensive—and some businesses wonder if their models will remain sustainable.

Due to new paperwork like health certificates and customs declarations, one-day deliveries were reportedly taking three days or more. And DFDS Scotland—a major logistics company for the industry—admitted to a mix of IT and paperwork issues. “These businesses are not transporting toilet rolls or widgets. They are exporting the highest quality, perishable seafood which has a finite window to get to markets in peak condition,” Donna Fordyce, chief executive of Seafood Scotland, told the BBC over the weekend. “If the window closes, these consignments go to landfill.”

And speaking of paperwork, one Scottish exporter told Reuters that paperwork alone could cost him over $800 a day. “I’m questioning whether to carry on,” he explained. “If our fish is too expensive our customers will buy elsewhere.”

Read the full story at Food & Wine

Scottish salmon producers urge government to address Brexit border disruptions

January 11, 2021 — Scotland’s salmon sector is calling on the U.K. government to help resolve delays to exports destined for E.U. markets following the introduction of the new border rules established in a Christmas Eve agreement, with implementation beginning on 1 January, 2021.

According to the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation (SSPO), dozens of truckloads of fish have failed to leave Scotland on time since the full Brexit regulations came into force, with confusion over paperwork, the extra documentation needed, and IT problems all contributing to the delays and hold-ups.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

‘It’s a catastrophe’: Scottish fishermen halt exports due to Brexit red tape

January 11, 2021 — Many Scottish fishermen have halted exports to European Union markets after post-Brexit bureaucracy shattered the system that used to put fresh langoustines and scallops in French shops just over a day after they were harvested.

Fishing exporters told Reuters their businesses could become unviable after the introduction of health certificates, customs declarations and other paperwork added days to their delivery times and hundreds of pounds to the cost of each load.

Business owners said they had tried to send small deliveries to France and Spain to test the new systems this week but it was taking five hours to secure a health certificate in Scotland, a document which is required to apply for other customs paperwork.

In the first working week after Brexit, one-day deliveries were taking three or more days – if they got through at all.

Owners could not say for sure where their valuable cargo was. A trade group told boats to stop fishing exported stocks.

“Our customers are pulling out,” Santiago Buesa of SB Fish told Reuters. “We are fresh product and the customers expect to have it fresh, so they’re not buying. It’s a catastrophe.”

Read the full story at Reuters

In Scotland, the battle for scallops and the future of sustainable fisheries

January 4, 2021 — People enjoy scallops in Oban. “We can’t get enough of them to satisfy demand,” smiles Carol Watt, whose family business has been selling fish for more than a century in the port city of Argyll.

Watt explains how she likes to cook the mollusks: pan-fried and eaten with pancetta, Italian bacon, as a line of masked shoppers forms outside her tiny mustard-yellow shack.

Watt beams with excitement as she shows off a tray of shucked scallops, palm-sized, pale, fleshy slices with the fiery red roe still holding on, which some customers find too spicy, wearing an apron emblazoned with a species-rich school of fish.

In the past, scallops, often referred to simply as “clams” in Scotland, were never so common. In 1960, the Scottish ports landed just sixty tons of the species. There were 15,000 tons in 2019, down 2% from 2018 but still worth almost £ 36 million.

The boom, however, has sparked an often bitter conflict about how scallops, which grow on the seabed, are harvested between environmentalists and the fishing industry.

Some “scallops” are lifted from the sea sustainably by divers, who charge a premium for doing so.

Read the full story at Brinkwire

Coronavirus increasingly impacting Scotland’s salmon exports

March 16, 2020 — The controls that have been imposed in various markets to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus pandemic have made it difficult for some of Scotland’s salmon exporters to get products to customers, and the trade situation is likely to deteriorate before improvements are seen, the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation (SSPO) has said.

U.S. President Donald Trump extended a European travel ban to include the United Kingdom and Ireland on Saturday, 14 March. Cargo remains exempt from the ban, but the number of trans-Atlantic flights has dropped as a result, significantly reducing bellyhold cargo capacity from the market, according to Air Cargo News.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Scottish salmon faces “huge, unnecessary burdens” through Brexit deal, warns industry body

February 12, 2020 — The Brexit deal being pursued by the United Kingdom’s government could significantly undermine the Scottish salmon sector by requiring exporters to secure health certificates to send products to E.U. markets, the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation (SSPO) has warned.

At present, because of the free movement of goods within the E.U., Scottish salmon shipments do not require export health certificates (EHCs). However, the SSPO fears this ability will change, saying that it now appears inevitable that these exports will need EHCs after the end of this year, when the transition phase is over.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Cooke acquires Invergordon fish feed mill in Scotland

September 19, 2019 — The following was released by Cooke Inc.:

Cooke Inc. announced today the establishment of Northeast Nutrition Scotland Limited after the acquisition of the former Skretting fish feed mill in Invergordon.

The mill facility is located at Inverbreakie Industrial Estate and had previously produced fish feed for aquaculture companies in Scotland. Northeast Nutrition Scotland Limited will manufacture fish feed for Cooke Aquaculture Scotland Limited, a leading salmon producer with facilities in the Shetland and Orkney Islands, as well as the United Kingdom’s mainland. Invergordon is a town and port in Easter Ross, in Ross and Cromarty, Highland, Scotland.

“All of our salmon is reared using feeds that are manufactured in compliance with the highest standards for animal feed safety,” said Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Inc. “We are excited to include domestic feed manufacturing in Scotland, adding to the vertical integration of our operations and further enhancing the full traceability of our fish.”

Skretting announced in November 2018 its plans to cease manufacturing activities in the United Kingdom, and it closed the Invergordon facility at the end of April 2019. Cooke plans to work with former employees who were affected by the closure to resume operations at the mill. “We are thrilled to be in a position to offer new opportunities to those employees and have an engaged and experienced team in place from day one,” said Chris Bryden, mill manager. “As a rural coastal community, Invergordon has a population of approximately 4,000 residents. Joining the Cooke family of companies provides us with the opportunity to keep Scottish jobs and be an important part of a globally respected growing seafood leader,” expressed Bryden.

Cooke Aquaculture Scotland and Cooke’s feed division and feed suppliers employ teams of professionals in fish nutrition, feed manufacture, fish feeding behavior, fish health management, farm management and information technology that oversee every aspect of feed supply and delivery. Cooke’s commitment to sustainably sourced feed ingredients, ongoing improvements to feed formulations and innovations in feed delivery allow the company to produce healthy fish for its customers.
https://www.cookeseafood.com/2019/09/19/cooke-acquires-invergordon-fish-feed-mill-in-scotland/

Scottish fishermen clash with overseas vessels, call for tougher controls

July 8, 2019 — Fishing skippers in Shetland are demanding urgent action on gill net and longline fishing by overseas vessels because of the amount of plastic debris they are leaving behind, according to the island’s fishing association.

A number of local boats have hauled up fine mesh twine in their own nets, and at least one had to sail for home for costly repairs after its propeller was fouled by longlines, said Shetland Fishermen — the collective term used for the Shetland Fishermen’s Association (SFA) and the Shetland Fish Producers’ Organisation.

“The problem is being exacerbated by a lack of proper communication and often aggressive behaviour by the predominantly Spanish and French skippers.”

Many gill netters leave their nets in position when they steam south to Ullapool, Scotland, to land, denying access to local boats that have fished these waters for decades, the fishermen claim.

SFA executive officer Simon Collins said it was “particularly galling” for Shetland skippers to be forced off local fishing grounds by vessels that leave rubbish behind.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News