August 24, 2026 — After the filing of another seafood greenwashing lawsuit recently, suppliers, retailers, and restaurants are yet again evaluating the best ways to market their products.
In late July, a class-action lawsuit was filed targeting retail giant Amazon, alleging that several seafood brands selling on the platform and associated retailers misleadingly use sustainability claims on several products bearing Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification.
August 26, 2026 — As a morning fog lifted over Maine’s York River, Mike Masi and his two interns stood on a dock sorting through a mound of one of the region’s most despised crabs and hoped to find a few that would end up on a gastronome’s plate somewhere in New England.
The trick is to identify invasive European green crabs that are about to shed their hard shell, or molt, revealing a softer exterior that has the feel of a leather couch, and are popular at restaurants. Not only do these green crabs fetch more money — Masi can get $3 a crab at market compared to as little as 8 cents for a hard shell — but catching them provides a service of sorts to the ocean’s ecosystem.
“Just about everyone hates them and we’re trying to turn them into a premium seafood product,” said Masi, whose company, shell+claw, is the only one that commercially cultivates these crabs.
Masi, a 45-year-old former marine science teacher, is part of a growing movement across New England aiming to lessen the crabs’ destructive impact by developing new markets. Others are putting green crabs in pet treats, fish sauce and even a line of green crab whiskey in New Hampshire.
The green crabs, Carcinus maenas, made their way from Europe to the East Coast in the ballast waters of ships hundreds of years ago. Numbering in the tens of millions, they outcompete Atlantic rock crab and juvenile lobster, destroy eelgrass beds and undermine salt marsh banks. They also are costing the region’s shellfish industry tens of millions of dollars each year, as they eat mussels, oysters and soft-shell clams.
August 25, 2026 — On January 1st, 2026, NOAA Fisheries implemented new import prohibitions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), banning seafood imports that failed a comparability finding. According to the findings, 240 fisheries from 46 countries failed to adequately protect marine mammals and were subsequently blocked from exporting their products to the U.S. Eight months later, this policy is noticeably affecting companies that produce the now-banned products. But the impact on the water is more difficult to measure and may not be going as NOAA intended.
I purchase seafood for a U.S.-based importing company that specializes in sushi ingredients. We recently visited a yellowfin tuna first receiver and processor near Tuy Hòa, Vietnam, and asked how operations have changed since the import ban on January 1st. This company processes yellowfin tuna for raw consumption, exporting “sashimi-grade” products to Europe, Japan, China, and its largest market, the U.S. Some of the raw material is handline-caught from a nearby fishery improvement project. This fishing method met the comparability study standards and has not been banned. But when handline fishing is slow, as it has been in recent years, fishers deploy gillnets to boost their catch. NOAA’s comparability findings determined that yellowfin tuna caught using gillnets do not meet MMPA standards and therefore can no longer be imported when caught in Vietnamese fisheries.
August 25, 2026 — More than three months after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the creation of its Office of Seafood, officials say the focus has shifted from launching the office to building what they described as an “America First Seafood Strategy” while identifying ways existing USDA programs can better serve commercial fishermen and seafood producers.
Since Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the office in April, USDA has been meeting with industry while conducting an internal review of agency programs that could be available to the industry, according to Mike Illenberg, acting director of the Office of Seafood.
“USDA has been meeting with and gathering feedback from fishermen, aquaculturists, processors, policymakers and other stakeholders to inform the development of the America First Seafood Strategy,” Illenberg told National Fisherman.
The office was established to follow up on President Donald Trump’s April 2025 executive order “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness,” with the goal of bringing seafood more fully into USDA’s food policy and rural development programs.
Read the full article at National Fisherman
August 25, 2026 — For more than 50 years, Mel Allen has made a career out of telling stories about those in New England.
He has written about fishermen and island communities, sardine packers and chefs, scientists counting fish aboard NOAA research vessels, and people whose livelihoods disappeared as fisheries and working waterfronts changed around them.
So when the former longtime editor of Yankee Magazine stood before a room filled with ocean scientists, researchers, and industry partners at the 2026 Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (NERACOOS) Annual Meeting, he came with a message that was surprisingly simple.
Tell people a story.
“If you want people to care about something big, whether conflicts between nations, the dilemma of immigration, or our changing oceans, do not show the topic,” Allen said. “Show how people have been touched by the topic. That’s how we relate to each other.”
For NERACOOS, that message comes at an important moment.
NERACOOS helps coordinate sensors, models, data systems, and other technology used to track conditions across New England’s waters. Now, its work is expanding through the new National Science Foundation (NSF) Seafood Engine in New England, an initiative focused on supporting New England’s seafood industry.
The potentially 10-year initiative is designed to build an innovation network across the seafood supply chain, connecting work on the water with processing, distribution, and the consumer. Its focus includes environmental sensing and modeling, technology development, workforce training, and investment.
For commercial fishermen, that puts an industry accustomed to being on the receiving end of scientific data and management decisions closer to the center of a much broader effort to determine how New England seafood adapts to a changing ocean and economy.
But Allen’s keynote reminded everyone what all that technology and investment is ultimately intended to serve.
People.
August 25, 2026 — The government of Canada has announced a sweeping set of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, including 25 percent duties on fish and seafood.
The U.S. and Canada had been undergoing trade talks after U.S. President Donald Trump continuously threatened Canada with tariffs since taking office in January 2025, including threats of 100 percent tariffs in February 2026 after Canada and China finalized a trade deal. Those trade talks had become rocky in recent months, with United States Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer announcing tariffs as high as 50 percent on Canadian goods in July, even as the two countries discuss the United States, Mexico, Canada agreement (USMCA) – a trade deal that Trump established in 2020.
August 24, 2026 — The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) is launching a new campaign to promote locally harvested flounder.
The “Flat is Back” campaign is a DMF collaboration with the Massachusetts Flounder Chef Council that features 10 chefs across the state cooking dishes made with locally harvested flounder until 30 September.
August 24, 2026 — Telling the stories of watermen and meeting consumers where they’re at emerged as priorities during a hearing for a new seafood marketing initiative in Maryland.
With consumption down and state regulations adding to the hurdles faced by seafood harvesters, Marylanders are making a coordinated effort to revive seafood sales both locally and abroad.
Earlier this year, the state Legislature tasked the Maryland Department of Agriculture with forming a seafood marketing workgroup to identify challenges and opportunities in the industry and develop an expanded state-led strategy.
Seafood industry representatives, state legislators and the secretaries of agriculture and natural resources make up the group.
The first of two public listening sessions for hearing stakeholders’ input took place Aug. 18 at the Ag Department office, with an introduction by Maryland Ag Secretary Kevin Atticks.
He said the state’s seafood industry is diverse and the workgroup needs stakeholder input to form a coherent plan.
“The market has completely changed in some respects and in other areas hasn’t changed in a century,” Atticks said.
August 22, 2026 — Cultivating food for human consumption is among the most noble and important jobs in society. Harnessing the resources gifted to us by nature and turning them into delicious meals for our neighbors and visitors is a challenging task, and farmers—of both the land and sea—deserve our gratitude.
Our pristine waters produce the most exquisite seafood on the planet. The flavors of our farmed oysters, mussels, and salmon are desired by the finest chefs in America and envied by seafood producers all over the world. Maine’s sea farmers are the ones who make it possible for us to be nourished by this local, sustainable, and delicious food.
The Maine Farmed Seafood Coalition consists of over 50 businesses and industry support groups—including seafood farmers and dealers, banks, educational institutions, and nonprofits. Our goal is to tell the authentic stories of sea farmers and educate the public about the opportunities aquaculture presents for our economy, communities, and ecosystems.
August 21, 2026 — Businesses and environmental NGOs are both working to push the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) into adopting its first-ever management procedures for tuna at its next meeting, which starts on 24 August.
Groups have been pushing the regional fishery management organization (RFMO) to adopt management procedures for multiple species it governs. Management procedures, also called harvest strategies, are a means of setting predetermined triggers on how a species is managed so that an RFMO has a clear roadmap for how to adjust fishing effort based on what surveys and scientific analysis of a stock indicate.