Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Team Gloucester packs them in at international expo

March 7, 2016 — BOSTON — There was no shortage of foreign languages filtering around the cavernous exhibition hall at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center when the international Seafood Expo North America show opened Sunday.

Visitors walking the aisles criss-crossing the exhibition floor among the 1,240 exhibitors could hear, among other tongues, snippets of Japanese, English, Spanish, Norwegian, Hebrew, Vietnamese and Korean.

And Gloucester. They most definitely could hear Gloucester, whether they wanted to or not.

Operating with a basic strategy of go-big or go-home, Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken and her merry band of Gloucesterites certainly made their presence known at one of the largest seafood shows in the world.

“Come to the city of Gloucester booth at 1671 and try some of our red fish soup, made with local Gloucester fish,” Romeo Theken announced over and over, and with authority, into the microphone as thousands of visitors and exhibitors milled past. “Gloucester fish is fresh fish. Check it out at www.gloucesterfresh.com.”

Not satisfied with just belting out a looping commentary and commercials for her city, Romeo Theken began walking through the crowd holding a redfish fillet in her hand, beseeching the assembled to smell it.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: A win for Gloucester Fresh

February 24, 2016 — For former Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk, it was a rare home game in her role as the executive secretary of the state’s Seaport Economic Council. For the city, it was another step forward in its efforts to brand and market its seafood and seafood businesses.

The Seaport Economic Council and its chairwoman, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, rolled into Gloucester on Tuesday morning, meeting for more than two hours at the Tavern on the Harbor and awarding 10 state grants worth $5.15 million to 10 Massachusetts entities — including $151,000 to the city’s Gloucester Fresh Seafood Innovation Program.

The Gloucester grant, according to city Economic Development Director Sal Di Stefano, will help the city expand its campaign to promote its seafood harvest locally, regionally and nationally. That expansion includes the nine-day rental of two digital billboards along Route 1 in advance of the city’s participation in the annual Seafood Expo North America in Boston during the first week of March.

Di Stefano said the billboards alone are expected to convey the city’s branding message to at least 400,000 commuters during the city’s run on them.

He said the grant money also will be used to defray the city’s overall costs of participating in the Seafood Expo North America show and the Boston Seafood Festival in each of the next two years.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester must relentlessly promote locally harvested seafood

February 20, 2016 — Gloucester needs to be relentless in promoting the benefits of its locally harvested seafood, as well as the fishermen and processors that send it to market, a city official told the Fisheries Commission this week.

Economic Development Director Sal Di Stefano said the city is addressing the challenges of operating in the modern, international seafood market with a marketing strategy designed to promote the city, its fresh seafood bounty, its fishermen and its shore-side businesses to the seafood-consuming world.

“If we don’t do this, other people will,” Di Stefano told the commission Thursday night during a discussion on the city’s plans for the upcoming Seafood Expo North America show in Boston. “And they will try to take it from us.”

The city’s new branding campaign, “Gloucester Fresh,” is at the heart of the promotional strategy aimed at helping consumers identify seafood harvested from the waters around Cape Ann and landed in Gloucester while appreciating its nutritional and sustainable benefits.

Working with Salem-based Sperling Interactive, the city is developing a website that Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken is scheduled to launch at the beginning of the Seafood Expo during the first week of March.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

Proposed Rule – 1st Phase of a U.S. Seafood Traceability Program to Combat IUU Fishing Products & Seafood Fraud

February 9, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA

Today, NOAA Fisheries is publishing the proposed rule to establish the first phase of a seafood traceability program through the collection or retention of data regarding the harvest, landing, and chain of custody of certain fish and fish products imported into the United States that have been identified as particularly vulnerable to IUU fishing and seafood fraud. It is important to note that there will be no new reporting requirements for domestic landings of wild-caught seafood. Similar information for domestically harvested seafood is already reported under numerous state and federal regulatory requirements.

Establishing a traceability program is a key tool for ensuring these illicit activities are prevented from entering U.S. Commerce and helping combat them in the complex system of international seafood trade.

This proposed rule is designed to build on existing resources and processes—maximizing effectiveness and efficiency, while minimizing impacts on the fishing and seafood trade community. To achieve these objectives, NOAA Fisheries is encouraging detailed comments from the fishing and seafood industry, conservation community, and other interested stakeholders engaged with sustainable seafood. Additionally, we have scheduled two webinar conference calls in February and an in-person public meeting on March 7, at the Seafood Expo N. America in Boston to provide opportunities for anyone to ask questions.

Gloucester, Mass. investment in seafood expo is money well spent

February 3, 2016 — Of all the initiatives begun last year by then-interim Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken, the return of the city to the international Seafood Expo North America in Boston was a no-brainer, given Theken’s deep ties to the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association.

By all accounts, the endeavor was a success. The city’s booth stood out amid a sea of sterile, cardboard convention center displays, thanks to the presence of the mayor and Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Fishermen’s Wives, and a bubbling, aromatic pot of redfish soup. That end product — the food people actually put in their mouths — is as emblematic of the Gloucester fishing industry as its hard-working fleet or the Man at the Wheel. Gloucester fishes so people can eat. What better way to bring home the point than with 40 steaming gallons of fish stew?

The end result was an increased awareness of the Gloucester brand, and a series of meetings among city officials, waterfront businesses and potential clients from the United States and abroad. It’s exactly the kind of result one would hope for from a long weekend’s attendance at a trade expo.

Last year’s expo, in fact, is still paying off: On the Monday of this year’s event, the city will play host to potential buyers and trade representatives from more than a dozen countries, including Canada, Turkey, Mexico, Iceland, Taiwan, Morocco, Spain, Indonesia and the Netherlands. Those are real contacts.

Read the full editorial at Gloucester Daily Times

Gloucester Massachusetts Looks to Hook Interest in its Seafood

January 31, 2016—The icebreaker was last year, when the city of Gloucester made its first foray to the vast and international Seafood Expo North America at the Boston Convention Center.

The mission was simple: raise Gloucester’s profile among the thousands of seafood buyers who flock to the show from just about every point on the planet and develop the kind of relationships that will thrust the city’s harvesters, processors and, of course, seafood into the international mix.

The effort, both inside and outside the city, was viewed as a raging success. So, with that precedent, Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken placed a little quest in front of point man Sal Di Stefano.

“The mayor challenged us to do it even bigger and better this year,” said Di Stefano, the city’s director of economic development.

Toward that end, Di Stefano has amassed an armada of city resources, Gloucester-based seafood businesses, volunteers, nonprofits and assistance from Endicott College to set sail for this year’s Seafood Expo North America with a more expansive plan centered on the city’s seafood marketing campaign of Gloucester Fresh Seafood.

“It’s a tremendous amount of work for everyone involved, but it’s really exciting how the entire community has responded,” Di Stefano said. “And we’re the only ones doing it like this.”

Seafood strategy

The city, which has budgeted $10,000 for the March 6-8 event and doubled the size of its booth, is the only Massachusetts municipality that will have a presence at the show.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times