Saving Seafood

Silver Bay Seafoods, Channel Fish and More Win Latest USDA Seafood Purchase Requests

May 20, 2024 — Earlier this month the USDA issued a handful of bid invitations for seafood products, including catfish, salmon and walleye, and Alaska pollock. While offer invites for the Alaska pollock products ends today, the USDA has already announced the winners for the catfish, salmon and walleye products.

Looking first at catfish, the bid invitation from the USDA went out on May 2. The bid was for a total of 392,000 lbs of catfish products for use in domestic food distribution programs, including unbreaded raw fillets and breaded oven ready strips. The Purchase Award Description that was released is for the entire 392,000 lbs, which has a value of $2,068,318.68

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Silver Bay Seafoods lands USD 7.35 million USDA supply contract, publicizes Bristol Bay sockeye pricing

May 19, 2024 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded more than USD 8.8 million (EUR 7.5 million) in U.S. salmon and walleye contracts.

Sitka, Alaska, U.S.A.-based Silver Bay Seafoods won the biggest share and will deliver USD 7.35 million (EUR 6.8 million) worth of canned pink salmon to several U.S. cities between July and December of this year as part of the USDA’s Child Nutrition Program and other domestic assistance programs.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: As Alaska salmon season opens, Silver Bay’s CEO assesses grim times

May 16, 2024 — The opening of the famed Copper River fishery – it starts this year on May 16 – traditionally marks the beginning of a new commercial salmon season in Alaska.

Rather than excitement, however, much of the industry feels apprehension, anxiety, and even anger. Since last year, we’ve seen a procession of negative and worrying developments, leading some to question the future of the salmon business.

Alaska’s seafood industry is floundering due to factors including glutted markets, unfavorable currency exchange rates, post-pandemic consumer shifts, food inflation, and weakness in other important fisheries such as pollock.

Based on preliminary data, prices paid in 2023 to both fishermen and processors were historically low for salmon and pollock, according to a recent analysis prepared for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI).

In recent months, we’ve seen extraordinary events, including the implosion of legacy processor Peter Pan Seafood and a selloff of Alaska plants by industry titan Trident Seafoods. Other processors have cut back operations. Some Alaska fishermen are wondering if they’ll have a market this year.

Could this be another season of discontent?

Certain forces suggest relief might be on the way. For one thing, the Alaska salmon harvest is expected to be much smaller this year at 136 million fish compared to 232 million in 2023. The catch of sockeye, the most valuable species, is projected at 39 million fish, well below last year’s 52 million. A smaller harvest could help clear salmon inventory and bolster ex-vessel and wholesale prices.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is buying huge volumes of Alaska salmon and pollock, supporting the struggling seafood industry.

The Alaska Legislature is putting together a special task force to address the industry’s problems – problems that could hurt Alaska coastal communities. And legislators are weighing an infusion of up to $10 million in additional support for ASMI. The marketing agency is pursuing new initiatives involving retail heavyweights such as Costco and Walmart, and in Japan, is supporting industry efforts to develop ready-to-eat convenience store products utilizing off-grade or No. 3 salmon.

Coming into this season, processors, in particular, face tremendous financial pressure – and high expectations.

Today, we offer the first of three conversations with top Alaska processing company CEOs.

Read the full article at The National Fisherman

ALASKA: Silver Bay Seafoods to acquire Peter Pan Seafoods’ Alaska operations

April 10, 2024 — Silver Bay Seafoods and Peter Pan Seafoods announced on April 4 that the agreement for Silver Bay to acquire Peter Pan’s Valdez facility has been finalized, and Silver Bay plans to operate the Peter Pan facilities in Port Moller and Dillingham for the 2024 salmon season.

Shifting operations of the two facilities to Silver Bay is a component of a more extensive restructuring that is still being finalized. Silver Bay would acquire Peter Pan’s processing facilities and support sites in this restructuring after the 2024 salmon season. Peter Pan will continue conducting the remaining activities needed to close out 2023 operations, including sales and accounting functions. Both companies are committed to a seamless transition and minimal disruption to fishermen, communities, and employees.

The plants owned by Peter Pan in Dillingham, Port Moller, and King Cove produce high-quality sockeye salmon that is also made in the plants owned by Silver Bay in False Pass and Naknek. King Cove also produces a variety of other species. Combining Alaska operations would allow anglers to benefit from improved services and the fish to be processed closer to the point of catch, further enhancing the quality of the pack and the diversity in product forms.

Silver Bay Seafoods is an integrated processor of frozen shrimp, herring, whitefish, and squid products for domestic and export markets. It opened its doors in 2007 as a single salmon processing facility in Sitka. Since then, it has grown into one of the largest seafood companies in Alaska, operating nine domestic processing facilities throughout the state.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Silver Bay Seafoods taking over Peter Pan Seafoods’ Alaska operations

April 6, 2024 — Silver Bay Seafoods has acquired Peter Pan Seafoods’ seafood processing facility in Valdez, Alaska, U.S.A. and will operate its other Alaska plans in 2024.

The agreement, announced 4 April, will see Silver Bay operate Peter Pan’s Port Moller and Dillingham facilities for the 2024 season, and then acquire them after the season ends. With Peter Pan’s closure of its King Cove plant in January 2024 and no announcement that it will reopen by summer, the company will effectively have no physical plant remaining in the state of Alaska. Additionally, it has agreed to transfer the licensing for its Demmings, Humpty Dumpty, and Double Q canned salmon brands to Silver Bay.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Peter Pan posts USD 1.10 per pound for Bristol Bay sockeye

June 21, 2021 — Peter Pan Seafood shook up the world’s largest wild salmon run on 19 June with the announcement it will pay a base price of USD 1.10 (EUR 0.84) per pound for sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

The price upholds reports of a strong market for wild sockeye and is a welcome development for Bristol Bay fishermen, who were disappointed by last season’s base price of USD 0.75 (EUR 0.63).

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska’s Peter Pan doubles down on value addition with Northwest Fish merger

January 11, 2021 — Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based Northwest Fish and Anchorage, Alaska, U.S.A.-based McKinley Capital Management have beat out Trident Seafoods, Canfisco, and Silver Bay Seafoods to scoop up the assets of Peter Pan Seafood Co. from Japanese conglomerate Maruha Nichiro.

The sale, which was announced by Maruha Nichiro in November 2020, was finalized on 31 December, 2020. Northwest Fish and McKinley collaborated with London, United Kingdom-based RRG Investments on the transaction. Peter Pan Seafood Co. now comprises Peter Pan Seafood’s assets and the value-added sales channels of Northwest Fish Co. The new ownership group is Rodger May of Northwest Fish, the Na’-Nuk Investment Fund (managed by McKinley Capital Management), and the RRG Global Partners Fund (managed by RRG Capital Management).

Read the full story at Seafood Source

‘Dark cloud of uncertainty’: Seafood executives, fishermen give dire warning against bill banning fishing in huge swath of federal waters

November 16, 2020 — Leaders from all segments of the US seafood industry are opposing an ocean climate bill that would create massive Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) prohibiting commercial fishing across at least 30 percent of the nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by 2030.

On Monday 800 members of the seafood industry, including Trident Seafoods CEO Joe Bundrant, Silver Bay Seafoods CEO Cora Campbell, Arctic Storm Management CEO Doug Christensen, Lund’s Fisheries President Wayne Reichle, Fortune International President & CEO Sean O’Scannlain and dozens of associations and independent fishermen, signed off on a letter sent to Democratic Arizona Rep. Raul M. Grijalva that said the legislation “puts the viability of our industry under a second dark cloud of uncertainty, for no discernable reason attached to meaningful improvements in conservation outcomes.”

Grijalva introduced the 300-page package of legislation to invest in ocean-based energy solutions, including offshore wind.

“This bill appears to ignore that expertise and process and just walls off parts of the ocean to fishing,” said John Connelly, president of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI), who also signed the letter.

Read the full story at IntraFish

ALASKA: Investors are backing Southeast’s largest oyster farms

February 12, 2019 — The largest ever oyster farms in Southeast Alaska could be coming soon. That’s in line with the state’s Mariculture Task Force that sees the potential for a $100 million industry in Alaska.

Silver Bay Seafoods has been buying and processing salmon and herring at its plant in Sitka for the past decade.

The company says it wants to do something new.

“Alaska waters produce the highest quality seafood products in the country, if not the world,” said Tommy Sheridan, a former state fisheries biologist who now works as a company representative. “There is significant demand for Alaska oysters.”

Silver Bay recently chartered a boat to take a group of local business people, academics and seafood industry boosters to see the site of its oyster venture about 13 miles from Sitka’s harbor.

It’s in a cove near rocky shoreline. Not much to see – yet.

“If this were to go through, what you’d see here would be a series of rafts that we’d use to suspend oysters from,” Sheridan tells the group.

Read the full story at KTOO

Tri Marine to sell California wetfish plant to Silver Bay

October 25, 2018 — Bellevue, Washington-based tuna supplier Tri Marine International will sell its California wetfish processing business to Alaska salmon processor Silver Bay Seafoods, the companies announced.

The deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, includes Tri Marine’s San Pedro processing plant but not an affiliated fleet of vessels. Those vessels, owned by the Tri Marine affiliate Cape Fisheries, will continue to deliver fish to the facility under Silver Bay’s ownership.

Tri Marine said in a press release that the move was made to focus on its core tuna business.

“I’m delighted that we’ve reached an agreement to sell to a highly regarded, strategic and successful company like Silver Bay,” ” Renato Curto, Tri Marine’s chief executive officer, said. “The sale of our California coastal pelagic assets and business will enable Tri Marine to concentrate our efforts and our resources on our core business – global tuna supply.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News