April 10, 2020 — Dive Brief:

• As statewide mandates force many restaurants and foodservice operations to temporarily shut down​, the seafood industry is severely hurting. Fishermen and dealers are working on looking for new markets to sell in and have asked the federal government for assistance.
• Bert Jongerden, general manager of a Maine auction house​ Portland Fish Exchange, told the Associated Press that the market for higher-end products like scallops and lobster is “pretty much nonexistent.” ​The Exchange typically moves up to 60,000 pounds of fish per week but has plummeted to less than a third of that.
• To get more consumers to eat seafood, a new group of 19 organizations called the The Seafood4Health Action Coalition ​launched a consumer-facing campaign called “Eat Seafood, America!” this week to push consumers to stay healthy by eating more seafood and therefore boosting the U.S. seafood economy​, according to an email sent to Food Dive.

Dive Insight:

Despite the rise in shoppers stockpiling food across the U.S., the seafood industry is in turmoil. Distribution, processing and fishing has slowed as prices are dropping and customers are dwindling. ​With restaurants closed, where seafood usually retains high prices, many of the country’s fisheries have reported sales dropping as much as 95% and thousands of commercial fishers are at risk of bankruptcy, The Washington Post reported.

About 68% of the $102.2 billion that consumers paid for U.S. fishery products in 2017 was spent in foodservice​. The lack in demand has sent prices free falling for a variety of products and has even caused some to stop fishing until the outbreak subsides. ​In March, the wholesale price for 1.25-pound lobsters was 33% lower than it was in 2018, according to Urner Barry data cited by the Associated Press.

Read the full story at Grocery Dive