Saving Seafood

Despite obstacles, US restaurants still banking on seafood for growth

April 18, 2025 — Though Americans’ economic concerns are driving many consumers to make more meals at home, U.S. restaurants are still banking on seafood for growth, and several seafood restaurant chains are expanding throughout the country as a result.

The prevalence of shellfish grew 3 percent on U.S. menus year over year in 2024, driven mainly by strong growth from shrimp, according to market research firm Circana. Servings of “other seafood” rose 1 percent due to strong growth from calamari, but fish dishes fell 3 percent during the year.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Meetings Materials for the May 1 Northern Shrimp Section and Advisory Panel Meetings are Now Available

April 17, 2025 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Meeting materials for the Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section (Section) and Advisory Panel (AP) upcoming meetings are now available at https://asmfc.org/events/northern-shrimp-section-6/ and https://asmfc.org/events/northern-shrimp-advisory-panel-4/, respectively. Both groups will meet on Thursday, May 1, at the Hyatt Place Portland-Old Port, 433 Fore Street, Portland, Maine. The AP will meet from 9 – 11 AM to review public comment and provide input on Draft Amendment 4.

The Section will meet from 12 – 3 PM on the same day to select final management options and consider recommending final approval of Amendment 4 to the Commission; if the document is moved forward, the Business Session of the Commission will consider its final approval on May 8 as part of the Spring Meeting. The Section will also review the final report from the industry-based pilot winter sampling program. Draft Amendment 4 considers options for setting multi-year moratoria and the implementation of a management trigger. The management trigger would be comprised of a set of biological and/or environmental indicators that could signal when the northern shrimp stock in the Gulf of Maine is at a population level that could support sustainable fishery.

Webinar Information

Only the Section meeting will be available via webinar. To register for the webinar, please go to: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4876698453855280735 (Webinar ID: 137-901-131). If you are joining the webinar but will not be using voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), you may also call in at +1 (415) 655-0052, access code 983-888-617. A PIN will be provided to you after joining the webinar. For those who will not be joining the webinar but would like to listen in to the audio portion only, press the # key when asked for a PIN. The webinar will begin 15 minutes prior to the meeting so that people can troubleshoot any connectivity or audio issues they may encounter.  If you are having issues with the webinar (connecting to or audio related issues), please contact Chris Jacobs at 703.842.0790.

Meeting Process

The Section Chair will ask both in-person and virtual board members if they wish to speak. In-person members can simply raise their hands at the meeting without logging on to the webinar, while virtual members will raise their hands on the webinar. The Chair will work with staff to compile the list of speakers, balancing the flow of questions/comments between in-person and virtual attendees. The same process will be used for public comment. Depending upon the number of commenters, the board chair will decide how to allocate the available time on the agenda (typically 10 minutes) to the number of people who want to speak.

For more information, please contact Chelsea Tuohy, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, atctuoy@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.    

 

New taxes are coming for imported shrimp. SC shrimpers say it’s about time.

December 3, 2024 — South Carolina shrimpers will begin to feel some relief from the pressures of cheap, imported frozen shrimp.

The U.S. International Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce will impose added taxes on the seafood product that’s flooded the market in recent years.

For shrimpers, it’s a welcome reprieve from the years of price gouging that’s run many fishermen out of business.

For consumers, it can mean higher prices on the frozen warmwater shrimp commonly found at grocery stores like Walmart and Costco.

The influx of imported frozen shrimp and unfair trade practices have injured the domestic shrimping industry, the United States International Trade Commission ruled in November.

Read the full story at The Post and Courier

Shrimp from Thailand Removed from Labor Department’s Forced Labor List

September 9, 2024 — The Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it had removed shrimp from Thailand from the list of prohibited products linked to forced labor, according to a September 5 notice published in the Federal Register.  

The official list, “Prohibition of Acquisition of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor” (E.O. List), was updated after the DOL said it had received proper information from multiple sources that indicated the use of forced labor had dwindled significantly. 

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

CAL’s Dean Pinkert calls on US shrimp buyers to investigate their Indian supply chains

April 4, 2024 — Dean Pinkert joined the Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.-based Corporate Accountability Lab, a non-governmental organization dedicated to advancing global human rights and environmental sustainability, as a special advisor in November 2021. He was one of the authors of “Hidden Harvest: Human Rights and Environmental Abuses in India’s Shrimp Industry,” a report released 20 March that presented evidence of labor issues at Indian shrimp hatcheries, farms, peeling sheds, and processing plants, as well as mangrove destruction and water contamination from shrimp farm effluent.

SeafoodSource:  Why did CAL decide to do such an in-depth investigation of India’s shrimp industry?

Pinkert: Forced labor is very close to the heart of CAL’s mission. We style ourselves as a human rights organization and also an organization that is interested in fostering a sustainable environment. So, when we became aware of the possibility that there were forced labor issues in India’s shrimp industry, we started to look very seriously into that.

I think that you also have to at least understand one piece of context, which is that the shrimp industries in other countries, [including] Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Thailand, and Vietnam, have previously faced a lot of criticism from human rights groups and investigative activities focused on labor abuses, including forced labor, but India had not. When there’s forced labor or environmental abuses in an industry and it looks like CAL can add value because those issues haven’t been fully investigated by human rights groups in the past, CAL is going to jump in and do it.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NFI Shares Seafood Industry Labor Principles Following India Shrimp Labor Abuse Reports

March 27, 2024 — Late last week, following the multiple reports on human rights and environmental abuse within India’s shrimp industry, the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) Executive Committee of the Board of Directors adopted and shared the “Seafood Industry Labor Principles, A Commitment By NFI Members.”

“There is no place for labor abuse in the seafood supply chain,” the document reads. “Every worker should have freedom of movement and no worker should be coerced to work.”

The Associated Press, Outlaw Ocean Project, and Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) all released reports last week exposing alleged labor abuse within India’s shrimp industry. Choice Canning Company, which has been exporting seafood products from India for the past 67 years, was named by a whistleblower in the report put out by Outlaw Ocean Project. According to the whistleblower, a 45-year-old American named Joshua Farinella, some Choice Canning workers were prohibited from leaving the facility. As general manager of Choice Canning’s plant six miles northeast of Amalapuram, Farinella also found himself covering up overcrowding when inspectors came, and even sending out shrimp that knowingly tested positive for antibiotics.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

6 Takeaways From The Indian Shrimp Labor Abuse Allegations By CAL, AP and Outlaw Ocean Project

March 25, 2024 — India is one of the largest producing countries of shrimp, exporting 653 million pounds to the U.S. alone in 2023, which represents 37.6% of imports. But now, the industry is facing some serious allegations. This week the Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL), the Associated Press (AP), and the Outlaw Ocean Project (OOP) have all accused India’s shrimp industry of human rights and environmental abuses.

On Wednesday CAL released their report titled “Hidden Harvest: Human Rights and Environmental Abuses in India’s Shrimp Industry.” The 97-page document, which is based on over 150 interviews with workers and other stakeholders, sheds light on abusive conditions, forced labor, environmental harms and certification schemes.

“Human rights and environmental abuses in global shrimp aquaculture have been documented for over a decade,” the press release from CAL explains. “Yet, India— despite its huge market share—has remained under the radar. Indian shrimp have been considered a “low-risk” source, even with telltale signs of abuse. CAL’s multi-year field investigations and interviews provide some of the first documentation of the widespread abusive and dangerous labor and environmental practices in the Indian shrimp sector—including shrimp products certified to be socially and environmentally responsible by the industry’s largest certification programs.”

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Responses flood in to reports alleging problems in India’s shrimp industry

March 23, 2024 — Separate reports from the Corporate Accountability Lab, the Associated Press, and the Outlaw Ocean Project investigating labor and food safety issues in India’s shrimp sector have elicited a vociferous response from the seafood industry at large.

Sysco, Great American Seafood, Rich Products, Walmart, Eastern Fish Company, and Nekkanti Sea Foods issued statements outlining their buying policies and/or addressing particular issues raised by the AP article. Sysco said it has suspended its purchases of shrimp from Nekkanti pending an internal investigation into the company’s alleged use of a third-party peeling shed, which is not permitted under Sysco policy. US Foods, Aldi, Costco, Hannaford, Kroger, Stop & Shop, Walmart, and Whole Foods, Red Lobster, and the Cheesecake Factory were also named as buying shrimp from Nekkanti, as listed on Nekkanti’s website.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US restaurant chains launch lobster, shrimp, cod specials as Lent kicks off

February 14, 2024 — Coinciding with the start of Lent on 14 February, numerous U.S. restaurant chains are rolling limited-time offers featuring lobster, shrimp, and cod.

One of the biggest U.S. seafood restaurant chains, Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.-based Red Lobster, is bringing back its popular Lobsterfest promotion and adding several new shrimp and lobster dishes to its menu, including Lobster Lover’s Dream featuring twin North American lobster tails and linguine with lobster sourced from Maine.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US seafood preference ranking reveals strong regional differences

February 5, 2024 — Catfish, lobster, haddock, pollock, and crab each have regional strongholds in the U.S. But a few species have broken through to national popularity, with shrimp, salmon, and cod leading the charge.

Shrimp was ranked the most popular species of seafood in every region of the U.S. for 2023. Salmon also made an appearance in the top five seafood species in all nine regions of the U.S., as identified by a Circana SupplyTrack survey done over 52 weeks ending June 2023. The data was presented at the Global Seafood Market Conference on 25 January 2024 in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource