Saving Seafood

NORTH CAROLINA: How one NC fish house ships fresh catch to seafood markets across US

July 8, 2026 — On a late March morning, barrels full of slippery bluefish straight off the boat glistened in the sun at O’Neal’s Sea Harvest in Wanchese. Within hours, the fresh catch would be shipped to seafood markets stretching from Canada to Louisiana.

“You try to get it in and out as quick as you can because it’s perishable,” said Ashley O’Neal. “They go on a truck today, and they’ll be wherever they are going by 2 or 3 o’clock tomorrow,” he said.

O’Neal’s Sea Harvest is one of several competitive fish houses on the southern tip of Roanoke Island on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The family-owned company also operates a seafood market and restaurant in front of its fish process center in Wanchese Seafood Industrial Park.

Benny and Linda O’Neal started the business in 1995. Today, their three children, Nicole Harper and brothers Colby and Ashley O’Neal, along with their respective wives, Lara and Abby, operate it.

Read the full article at the Miami Herald

 

US firms aim to “re-shore” seafood processing from China

March 16, 2022 — Mounting supply-chain difficulties are creating opportunities for U.S. processors to re-shore work that previously was performed abroad.

In China, where the bulk of processing of seafood products eventually exported to the United States was once completed, a shift is underway. Companies that previously focused on exports are discovering they can make better returns in the domestic market, according to Cui He, the secretary general of the China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Association (CAPPMA). Cui also cited China’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and related logistical and transportation issues that have slowed production and delivery times for the country’s seafood processing sector.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Chicken of the Sea invests over a million in new canning line, high-speed vision system

August 11, 2017 — As part of its latest campaign to invest in its presence in the United States, Chicken of the Sea will be outfitting its Lyons, Georgia U.S.A.-based processing facility with a cutting-edge technological upgrade totaling USD 1.4 million (EUR 1.1 million).

A new, high-speed vision system and canning line will be installed as part of the upgrade, with a completion date set for December 2017. The 200,000-square-foot Georgia facility, which opened back in 2009, employs hundreds of workers who package and can thousands of cases of quality seafood each day – the new technologies in store for the plant will make those employees’ lives easier, and help boost the local economy as well as facility efficiencies, the company said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Massachusetts lobstermen want to create in-state processing industry

March 12, 2016 — With two of the top five lobster ports in the state, the South Shore could see newly created jobs and increased income for its local fisherman if legislators pass a law clearing the way for lobster parts to be processed in Massachusetts.

The bill to allow shell-on lobster parts to be processed, transported and sold in the state passed the State Senate in January and is waiting on action by the House, possibly before April, said co-sponsor Rep. James Cantwell, D-Marshfield.

Approval would allow Massachusetts to compete with Maine lobster processors that are going up against the dominant players globally – lobster meat processors based in Canada’s Maritime Provinces.

The dynamics of the international lobster processing market are starting to shift. America exported about 69 million pounds of lobster to Canada in 2014, and the 2015 figure was less than 67 million, federal data show.

Massachusetts lobstermen are eager to enter this market, especially on the South Shore.

Read the full story at The Patriot Ledger