Saving Seafood

Alaska salmon landings up 61%, while Yukon River villages see poorest chum return on record

August 9, 2021 — Alaska’s salmon landings have passed the season’s midpoint, and by Aug. 7 the statewide catch had topped 116 million fish. State managers are calling for a projected total 2021 harvest of 190 million salmon, a 61% increase over 2020.

Most of the salmon being caught now are pinks, with Prince William Sound topping 35 million humpies, well over the projection of 25 million.

Pink salmon catches at Kodiak remained sluggish at just over 3 million so far out of a forecast calling for over 22 million.

Southeast was seeing a slight uptick, with pink catches nearing 14 million out of a projected 28 million.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Alaskans Own, Northline Seafoods donate 45,000 pounds of sockeye

August 17, 2020 — This week, two community supported fisheries announced a plan to give back to Alaska communities in need. Alaskans Own and Northline Seafoods are teaming up to deliver 45,000 pounds of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon to Alaska Native villages experiencing record-low salmon returns this year. The announcement follows on the heels of SeaShare’s announcement that its donation requests to food banks and other hunger-relief efforts have skyrocketed this year.

Both Alaskans Own and Northline Seafoods are based in Sitka and evolved from a devotion to sustaining fishing communities, which makes these donation initiatives a perfect match.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

SeaShare, food distributors work to keep food supply moving amid COVID-19 pandemic

March 19, 2020 — Seafood producers and foodservice distributors alike have formed partnerships amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic to ensure that U.S. residents continue to have a supply of food.

On 19 March, the International Foodservice Distributors Association (IFDA) and the FMI-Food Industry Association announced an ad-hoc partnership to help cope with the supply-chain disruptions caused by the ongoing epidemic. The new partnership consists of a matching program, connecting foodservice/broadline distributors with excess capacity – either products, transport services, or warehousing services – to food retailers and wholesalers that need additional resources to meet the rapidly increased demand seen in the retail and grocery industry.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

SeaShare, NFI Future Leaders hold national day of giving to fight hunger with seafood

October 15, 2019 — SeaShare – a nonprofit organization devoted to partnering with the seafood industry to get seafood into various foodbanks – and the National Fisheries Institute’s (NFI) Future Leaders program is holding a national day of giving on 16 October.

SeaShare donates seafood through a national network of food banks, known as Feeding America, in order to provide thousands of people struggling with hunger with healthy proteins. Partners throughout the seafood industry provide funding and seafood to give nutritious meals to some of the 41 million Americans that struggle with hunger.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NFI Future Leaders seek donations for SeaShare

October 23, 2018 — The National Fisheries Institute’s Future Leaders program is seeking donations for SeaShare, a non-profit organized to enable the U.S. seafood industry to donate food and resources to hunger-relief efforts nationwide.

The Future Leaders program, founded and run by the seafood industry’s trade group, is designed to craft and promote young leaders in the industry through a year-long training program.

SeaShare Director of Development Kate Tomkins said the Future Leaders have conducted a SeaShare giving campaign since 2011.

“Like Future Leaders, SeaShare really represents the seafood industry, is aligned with seafood industry, and we both see ourselves as extensions of the industry giving back for hunger-relief,” Tomkins said.

Founded in 1994 and based in Bainbridge Island, Washington, U.S.A., near Seattle, SeaShare annually organizes the donation of more than two million pounds of seafood to food banks in as many as 30 states across the United States. Tomkins said in addition to seafood, the organization also accepts in-kind donations of cold storage and transportation, and has nearly 200 partners throughout the supply chain helping to get seafood to food banks.

“We want to continue to bring more seafood to more people throughout the country,” Tomkins said. “There are 42 million Americans who struggle with hunger. That number has not significantly changed since the end of the last financial crisis. People are still really struggling to meet their own basic needs, and we believe everyone should have access to highest-quality protein that’s out there.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Gorton’s giving 214K pounds of pollock to food banks in areas hit by Harvey

November 13, 2017 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — There’s just something about a guy in a Sou’wester that makes you know that you can trust him when things get a tad sticky. Which is the complete opposite of guys in visors. Them, we keep a eye on.

One of the Gloucester companies that helped make the sou’wester an iconic image of the fishing life is Gorton’s Seafood over at the east end of Rogers Street. And the company has done a very good thing.

Last week, the seafood company announced it is donating 214,000 pounds of its pollock tenders — which breaks down into about 858,000 separate servings (curiously, the exact daily amount called for in the Tom Brady diet) — to food banks in areas ravaged by Hurricane Harvey.

Gorton’s donated the fish to SeaShare, a nonprofit that helps distribute seafood all over the country to folks in need of food assistance through the local organizations which help provide it.

SeaShare set a goal of delivering 2 million servings to the distressed areas damaged by the hurricane and Gorton’s single contribution sure gets the ball rolling in the right direction.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

LIVE FROM SENA: Plenty of Fish in the Sea

March 9, 2016 — In the immediate wake of the 2016 Seafood Expo North America, the overwhelming impression is of bounty. As always, there was a plethora of product to sample, with plenty of standout items. Traversing the show floor at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center this week, Progressive Grocer noted even more breaded/crusted offerings than in past years, with shrimp, crab, clams, calamari, oysters, catfish, cod, tilapia, grouper, haddock and rainbow trout all getting the crunchy treatment, some in the form of bite-sized chunks. Also observed: a continuing trend towards zesty spices, sauces and marinades, with Southwestern flavors – as evidenced by the fish tacos served up by Miramar, Fla.-based Regal Springs, which donated 5 pounds of tilapia for every taco sampled to hunger relief nonprofit SeaShare – and sriracha particularly prevalent.

At the National Fish & Seafood booth, Nancy Peterson, VP of marketing at the Gloucester, Mass.-based company, was particularly excited about the company’s newest product introduction under its Matlaw’s brand: the seven-SKU Big Bag Value line, which Peterson noted offers on-trend flavor, variety and affordable price in clear, super-sized bilingual (English and Spanish) packaging enabling customers to see just what they’re purchasing. Among the products in the convenient frozen line are Shrimp Jalapeño Mac & Cheese Bites, leveraging consumer interest in breaded, bite-sized, spicy items. National Fish & Seafood is considering adding a lobster option to the line, according to Peterson, who adds that the company gets many of its ideas for retail products from items developed for foodservice. “That’s worked very well for us,” she asserted.

Read the full story at Progressive Grocer