Saving Seafood

Alaska seafood showing ‘partial recovery,’ says state seafood marketing arm

January 24, 2022 — Things were looking up for Alaska’s seafood industry in many ways in 2021. More people around the world took to buying and cooking seafood at home and seafood prices went up statewide.

But the industry is still struggling with problems brought on and exacerbated by COVID-19, like supply chain issues and mitigation costs. That’s according to a new report from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, the state’s seafood marketing arm.

“Our industry is still facing a lot of the challenges it faced both at the start of the pandemic in 2020 and even before that,” said Ashley Heimbigner, communications director for the institute.

She said this year’s report scrutinized numbers from 2019, since 2020 was such an anomaly.

Read the full story at KTOO

 

Restaurants’ headwinds include labor, inflation, but pent-up demand in their favor

January 21, 2022 — Restaurant operators face significant challenges – especially finding enough employees – but have pent-up dining demand in their favor, according to B. Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the National Restaurant Association Research and Knowledge Group.

Restaurants’ labor costs are running at the highest rate in more than 40 years, Riehle said at the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference (GSMC) in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A., on Wednesday, 19 January.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Global shrimp production to surpass 5 million MT in 2022, CP Foods’ Robin McIntosh predicts

January 20, 2022 — Global shrimp production has continued to trend upward, with a panel of experts at the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference predicting that global shrimp production will exceed 5 million metric tons (MT) in 2022.

Current predictions put the production at 5.011 million MT in 2022, a significant increase over the 4.569 million MT grown in 2021, which itself was an increase over the 4.086 million MT produced in 2020. Globally, shrimp production has seen a tremendous upswing – in 2015, global shrimp production didn’t even reach 3 million MT.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

“Everyone’s crystal ball is broken” – COVID-19 has scrambled the industry’s ability to plan ahead

January 20, 2022 — Historically, conversations around logistics didn’t always reach the top level of the seafood industry’s decision-making hierarchy, but in the past two years, that has changed.

A Global Seafood Market Conference (GSMC) panel on Tuesday, 18 January, examined how logistics became top-of-mind for seafood executives, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has decimated the industry’s ability to use forecasting for business-planning purposes.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

US fresh, frozen seafood retail sales set records in 2021

January 12, 2022 — Sales of frozen and fresh seafood in the U.S. hit all-time highs in 2021, primarily driven by inflation.

Retail seafood sales hit new highs in 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic buying sprees and more consumers eating at home, but 2021’s sales totals eclipsed the previous year, IRI and 210 Analytics said in a new report. Fresh seafood sales rose 4 percent compared to 2020 and 30.8 percent versus 2019, reaching USD 7.1 billion (EUR 6.3 billion). Frozen seafood sales rose 2.8 percent compared to 2020 and 40.8 percent versus 2019, reach USD 7.2 billion (EUR 6.4 billion).

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Best and Worst in Alaska Seafood: Laine Welch’s Picks and Pans for 2021

January 5, 2022 — Since 1991, the weekly Fish Factor column has highlighted Alaska’s seafood industry with its annual Picks and Pans — a no holds barred look back at some of the year’s best and worst, and my choice for the year’s biggest fish story.

Here are the choices for 2021, in no particular order:

Most business potential — Seaweed mariculture. The market value of U.S. seaweed is pegged at $41 billion by 2031. Driving the demand is increased use in pharmaceuticals, health supplements, as a natural thickening agent and in animal feeds.

Best fish invention — Lightweight, collapsible slinky pots for catching black cod that solve the problem of whales stripping as much as 75 percent of the pricey fish from longline hooks.

Biggest fish booster — The pandemic continues to push record sales of all seafood with no end in sight. Pre-covid, most Americans only ate fish and shellfish at restaurants. Now they are buying seafood to cook at home. Online sales also have soared and are expected to grow.

Best fish fighters — Reps. Sarah Vance of Homer, Kevin McCabe of Big Lake, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins of Sitka. They’ve put partisan politics aside to protect Alaska’s fishery resources.

Best fish knowledge builders — Alaska Sea Grant

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Sustainable seafood purchasing boosted by younger generations, pandemic pressures

December 30, 2021 — Consumers are becoming more interested in the sustainability credentials of the seafood they eat, a long-awaited trend the COVID-19 pandemic may have served to accelerate.

Data from GlobeScan found that in 2020, 38 percent of the consumers surveyed possessed a willingness to reward companies they perceived as responsible, a significant leap up from the roughly 20 percent the firm had historically tallied since 1999.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Cheap imports depress US swordfish market

December 30, 2021 — Low production, the ongoing COVID-19 health and economic crisis, and a flood of product from Canada are depressing the U.S. commercial swordfish market in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic, according to some industry members.

“Production levels are the lowest they’ve been since the beginning of time,” Fort Pierce, Florida, U.S.A.-based Day Boat Seafood Owner Scott Taylor said. “There have been no positive developments whatsoever. I have more boats sitting at the dock than I have fishing.”

Read the full story at SeafoodSource