Saving Seafood

Chilean salmon industry pledges 50 percent reduction in antibiotics usage

March 20, 2018 — At Seafood Expo North America on Monday, 18 March, companies representing about 80 percent of the total production of salmon in Chile vowed to reduce their use of antibiotics and seek a “Good Alternative” rating from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program by 2025.

Members of the Chilean Salmon Marketing Council, which include Cermaq Chile, MultiExport Foods, Australis, Salmones Camachaca, Blumar, Ventisqueros, Salmones Austral, Marine Farm, Salmones Magallanes, and AgroSuper (which owns Aquachile, Los Fiordos, and Verlasso), have all pledged to pursue a 50 percent reduction in their use of antibiotics by 2025.

The partnership between SalmonChile, the Chilean Salmon Marketing Council, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium will formally be known as the Chilean Salmon Antibiotic Reduction Program (CSARP). Norway-based Mowi’s Chilean operations will also participate in the initiative, SalmonChile CEO Arturo Clement told SeafoodSource at the event.

Griffin said the issue of antibiotic use has been a major one for the Chilean salmon industry for years, and that when he took over as head of the marketing council in December 2017, curbing antibiotic use was a top priority for him, as a means to achieve higher recognition in Seafood Watch’s seafood ranking system, which rates seafood as either a “Best Choice,” a “Good Alternative,” or as food to “Avoid.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Latest Oceana seafood fraud report takes aim at SIMP, but misses mark

March 20, 2019 — The intention of Oceana’s most recent report was to call for an expansion of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP). SIMP is an electronic traceability program designed to reduce fraud in the import of seafood into the United States. The program was created under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 and is managed by U.S. Customs and NOAA. Currently, SIMP requires importers to maintain records for shrimp, abalone, Atlantic cod, blue crab, dolphinfish, grouper, king crab, Pacific cod, red snapper, sea cucumber, sharks, swordfish, and tunas, detailing how they were caught or harvested and tracking the products until they reach the U.S. The program however does not extend past the importation stage – once it is in the domestic supply chain, the traceability systems end. Oceana is using their latest report as advocacy for including all seafood species (not just the ones listed above) and to extend traceability further into the supply chain past the point of importation.

Oceana sought to expose the limitations of this program by, “launching a nationwide investigation of some popular seafood types not covered by the program.” “Oceana employees and volunteers collected more than 400 samples from over 250 locations in 24 states and the District of Columbia, including restaurants, large grocery stores and smaller markets.”

Same critique of Oceana’s approach to seafood fraud

There were 29 different seafood “types” collected, but no criteria for how they chose these “types” other than they were not found in the SIMP program. Oceana used DNA testing to match the results with the label as per FDA guidelines. If something was labeled as simply “seabass”, but was more specifically Patagonian tooth, that label was considered incorrect and fraudulent. The same can be said for a label that read “snapper” but was not specific to explain which exact species. This is a critical decision by Oceana because it raises the incidence of seafood mislabeling found in restaurants where menu descriptions are often more general than in retail settings. Indeed, samples obtained in this study from restaurants were mislabeled 26% of the time compared to retail 16% of the time. As for seabass and snapper, they saw rates of mislabeling at 55% and 42%, respectively.

Oceana also attempted to exaggerate its results around catfish. Swai (Pangasius bocourti), a species of catfish, and channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) are two major seafood imports to the US, typically from East Asia. Some of these imported catfish species have been associated with low sustainability ratings and health concerns; there is no doubt that this is a tricky labeling situation for the FDA to monitor. But there is already a strict labeling law that requires all imported catfish species – even true channel catfish – to be labeled differently. “Catfish” can now only be on labels of US caught or farm raised catfish products, even if it is the exact same species, as is the case with channel catfish imports. This law was enacted as an economic buffer a few years ago to protect the US catfish aquaculture industry. To this end, Oceana found only 7% of catfish labels to be incorrect. To me, that is a pretty low rate for one of the most consumed seafoods in the country, but Oceana framed this result much differently.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

 

Cooke Inc. Acquires All Seas Wholesale, Inc.

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

Cooke Inc. (“Cooke”), a New Brunswick company and parent of Cooke Aquaculture Inc., has acquired All Seas Wholesale, Inc. of California, a distributor of up to forty species of fresh seafood, live shellfish, and frozen seafood products. The transaction was completed in mid-February of this year.

For 33 years, All Seas Wholesale, Inc. has been proudly servicing the San Francisco Bay area’s hotels, country clubs, airline & event caterers, upscale retail markets, and restaurants as a same day purveyor of the finest quality seafoods.

“Purchasing All Seas allows us to continue to strengthen our vertical integration and distribute our True North Seafood products to additional markets,” said Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Inc. “All Seas prides itself on being able to receive an order early in the morning and have it delivered fresh to the customer to serve on their lunch menu that same day, and that fits very well with our drive for high standards in both top quality products and customer satisfaction.”

“We are thrilled to have joined the Cooke family of companies,” said Peggy Howse, General Manager, All Seas Wholesale. “Cooke is respected globally for delivering delicious, sustainable seafood products and now All Seas Wholesale will be taken to the next level serving customers.”

“95% of All Seas Wholesale employees have been with the company for over 10 years,” added Howse. “Our devoted professionals have united with the top seafood team dedicated to offering freshest seafood imaginable.”

The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed as both companies are private family-owned businesses.

Cooke Inc. is showcasing it’s fresh, sustainable True North Seafood Company branded products this week in Boston, MA, at Seafood Expo North America, in booths 1133 & 1233.

Read the full release here

Legit Fish to Launch Technology That Traces Origin of Seafood

March 16, 2019 — The following was released by Legit Fish:

Legit Fish, provider of a first-of-its-kind seafood traceability technology, is launching its application this weekend that allows an unprecedented level of transparency for consumers while ensuring a seafood’s origin actually matches its packaging. Legit Fish will unveil its new tool at the Seafood Expo North America in Boston on Sunday, March 17th, 2019 at booth 289.

“Increasing stories around seafood fraud are eroding consumer trust; we’re seeing repetitive cases where seafood is claimed to be from local waters when it is in fact imported,” said Michael Carroll, CEO of Legit Fish. “The technology we are bringing to the market changes all of that because our traceability system is verified with the official government harvest records. No one else is doing this.”

Legit Fish is already partnering with the BASE Auction Company, helping it launch the most technologically advanced logistics and auction system in the world with its Groundfish and Sea Scallop business. The system enables vessels to hail quantities into the auction that can be sold via a real-time cloud-based platform, with transactions clearing simultaneously in milliseconds. BASE runs its auctions in two of the most treasured fishing ports in the United States; New Bedford, MA, the most economically significant, and in Gloucester, MA, the country’s oldest.

The traceability software of Legit Fish (www.legitfishinc.com) is able to track seafood from the dock to the dinner table, offering confidence for buyers and leveling the playing field for vessel owners, assuring them that when their product travels down the supply chain, it can’t be substituted with inferior product, and with that, a lower price. Legit Fish does this through a cloud-based software that provides a binding chain of custody control that ensures the product featured meets the claim on the package.

The traceability technology comes at a time when the industry is coming under fire about its truthfulness in packaging. Just last week, the conservation group Oceana put out a report that found 1 in every 3 businesses sold at least one kind of seafood that wasn’t labeled properly, with Snapper (42%) and Sea Bass (55%) having the highest samples that were fraudulent. And a recent investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office found “more than one in four” seafood purchases were mislabeled and “about two-thirds” of the supermarket chains reviewed had at least one instance of mislabeling.

“This type of rigorous trace application will offer domestic fisheries a tool to ensure their products are not being knocked off in the marketplace by imported or even farmed goods,” says Carroll. “Currently there is no other scalable traceability tool that concretely verifies seafood products against the government harvest records.”

When fully implemented, the data offered by Legit Fish can be accessed by seafood retailers, processors, dealers and consumers with the scan of a QR code that provides not only the port where the fish originated, but its species, location, landing dates, and the vessel it came off of.

With this in mind, Legit Fish is attracting interest from discerning retailers who want better assurance and controls over the origin of their products; Legit Fish has already forged a number of partnerships in the industry and is currently rolling out its technology with a retailer.

“We will change the way the seafood industry does business,” said Carroll. “The Legit Fish technology will substantially increase transparency that will benefit both the fisherman and the consumer.”

For more information, please contact:

Michael Carroll

Legit Fish

617-640-8126 (cell)

mike@legitfishinc.com

 

International buyers find ‘world-renowned seafood’ in New Bedford

March 15, 2019 — Seafood buyers from 14 countries visited the city’s leading seafood companies on Friday.

Buyers from Asia, Europe and the Middle East toured BASE New England Seafood Auction, Bergie’s Seafood, Atlantic Capes Fisheries and East Coast Seafood. Countries represented on the tour included China, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom and Vietnam.

“As the most valuable commercial fishing port in the nation for the 18th year in a row, New Bedford is also home to 50-plus seafood processors,” said Ed Anthes-Washburn, executive director of the Port of New Bedford, in a statement. “More than a million pounds of seafood enters and exits the port on a daily basis, so it’s always a pleasure to showcase the port to potential international buyers”

The buyers are in Boston for the 2019 Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America, the largest seafood trade event in North America.

Food Export Northeast, a nonprofit export promotion group, sponsored the foreign buyer tour, which consisted of 19 “vetted serious buyers,” said Colleen Coyne, Seafood program coordinator for Food Export-Northeast.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Seafood Fraud Investigation: 20% of Fish Mislabeled Nationwide

March 12, 2019 — Seafood fraud is prevalent in the United States, according to a new investigation that finds 20 percent of the fish we buy may be mislabeled.

A nationwide investigation by ocean conservation group Oceana tested more than 400 seafood samples from 250 locations, including restaurants, small markets, and big chain grocery stores. Oceana found one in five of the fish were mislabeled, and an even larger one in three businesses sold mislabeled seafood.

Oceana tested popular seafood between March and August 2018. It found that the most frequent mislabeling turned up at restaurants and small markets (26 percent and 24 percent, respectively), while only 12 percent was mislabeled at larger grocery store chains. The investigation uncovered imported seafood being sold as regional favorites, leading customers to believe the seafood was local. It also found vulnerable species mislabeled as more abundant species. And some fish was also given generic labels like “sea bass” and “catfish” which Oceana says disguises lower-value species or masks health and conservation risks.

Read the full story at Chesapeake Bay Magazine

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike reneges on Tsukiji promises

March 6, 2019 — Without apology or explanation – or even acknowledgement – Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike has reversed her promise to redevelop the city’s famed Tsukiji fish market as a food-related theme park. She now backs a plan to build an international conference and exhibition hall complex at the site, which will include a luxury hotel, waterfront open space, restaurants, and docks.

Critics are demanding Koike explain her reversal to the former tenants, who were promised the right to move back into the old market if they wished. Newspaper editorials and television commentators have lambasted Koike’s action and her refusal to admit she changed her mind on the decision.

Vendors strongly opposed the high-profile closure of Tsukiji and their forced move to the new Toyosu marketing in October 2018. In addition to concerns over polluted soil at the new site, there was strong opposition from many who wanted to preserve the tradition and living history of the old site.

Just before the Tokyo governmental election, on 20 June, 2017, in order to gain acceptance from market tenants and resolve the thorny issue, Koike championed the phrase, “Protect Tsukiji, utilize Toyosu!”

“I promise to help businesses when they decide to return to Tsukiji,” Koike said at the time.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

SFP credits squid supply chain roundtable for improvements to global sustainability

January 30, 2019 — The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership is crediting work performed at its global squid supply chain roundtable for the rapid improvement in the sustainability of squid fisheries globally.

According to SFP, nearly one-fifth of all squid produced globally can now be classified as either sustainable or improving toward sustainability. That’s in stark contrast to just a year ago, when SFP estimated that less than one percent of squid production was sustainable or improving.

SFP has been monitoring the sustainability of squid – and many other fisheries – as part of its Target 75 Initiative, which back in 2017 set a goal to have 75 percent or more of seafood volume produced globally either reach sustainability or be improving toward sustainability.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Experts question value of “premium” seafood

January 30, 2019 — At the beginning of the panel on premium finfish at the 2019 Global Seafood Market Conference in Coronado, California, on 15 January, moderator Derek Figueroa, the chief operating officer of Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.-based Seattle Fish Company, flashed a slide with the definition of both “premium” and “premium seafood.”

  • Premium: Noun – a high-value or a value in excess of that normally or usually expected. Adjective – of exceptional quality or amount.
  • Premium seafood: Species or product form whose attributes drive product preference over and above the norm.

Figueroa clarified that the second definition had been created by the seven panelists themselves, and then, amidst updates on the status of species such as mahi, tilapia, sea bass, and barramundi, he curated a discussion on how the panelists arrived at their opinions on how they define “premium” seafood.

“What can we do to position seafood as a premium product?” Figueroa asked the panel. And, more provocatively, he added, “And do we want to?”

James Berger, the director of national sales for Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.A.-based Beaver Street Fisheries, seemed to struggle to answer Figueroa’s question.

“Is premium defined by price? Is it determined by the fact that you can’t find it – that it’s rare? Or is it defined by some stigma due to its cool Hawaiian name or that it comes from South America? I don’t know the answer,” he said.

Figueroa identified seven characteristics that can help define a species as premium: branding, price, sustainability, harvest method, country of origin, story/provenance, and whether it’s local or regional. He also pointed out the fact that harvesters, suppliers, retailers, and consumers each have their own distinct ideas of what defines a species of fish as premium. For harvesters, it could be demand, seasonality, and the labor involved. For suppliers, it could be harvest methods and availability. For restaurants or retailers, price, flavor, versatility, and sustainability play a role. For consumers, price and whether a fish is wild or farmed appear to be the main factors.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Government shutdown costing New Bedford fishing company more than $17,000 a week

January 16, 2019 — The longest government shutdown in U.S. history is beginning to affect the most valuable fishing port in the country.

The partial shutdown reached day 25 on Tuesday, which means many offices within NOAA have been closed for more than three weeks.

“Our shell stock has dwindled because I have one boat in limbo and only one boat that’s fishing,” CEO and President of Nantucket Sound Seafood LLC Allen Rencurrel said. “So we’re definitely feeling the effect of the government shutdown.”

Without an open government, Rencurrel can’t get federal approval for leasing licenses or “tags.” It’s led Nantucket Sound Seafood to only have one vessel to harvest clams in federal waters and one in state waters.

The regulations in state waters are far more restrictive including less quota.

Without receiving approval for leasing, Rencurrel estimated losses exceeding $17,000 a week.

“And that’s the smallest boat in the fleet,” he said.

It’s just one example of the fallout the New Bedford fishing industry is feeling in dealing with the shutdown in Washington. While monitors and observers continue to police quotas, other aspects of the shutdown have crippled production on the waterfront.

“I think the industry would pay them to go in to work for a week. Just to get all the transfers done,” Rencurrel said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times