Saving Seafood

Snow crab and other premium crab saw huge retail growth in 2020

April 20, 2021 — “Insatiable” is the word being used to describe the demand for snow crab as the world’s largest fishery got underway on April 5 in eastern Canada. And while more snow crab will be available this year, buyers expect a tight supply.

Global seafood supplier Tradex said snow crab and other “premium crab” saw huge growth at retail in 2020 and demand is even higher this year.

Seafoods like crab and lobster are now perceived as being affordable to buy and cook at home compared to the cost in restaurants. Tradex spokesperson Tasha Cadence said that shift has spawned a new pandemic-inspired word by market experts.

“It’s ‘premiumization,’ or customers recognizing a higher value for a product and paying a higher price,” she said, referring to comments by industry veteran Les Hodges in his April Crab Update.

The combined Canadian catch for snow crab through September, most of which is sold to the U.S., tops 157 million pounds, 11 million pounds higher than 2020. The Canadian crab makes up 62% of the U.S. market share, according to Urner-Barry which has provided information for the food industry since 1858.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: With Fishing Slowed By Pandemic, Bering Sea Crabbers Push For Extended Season

March 29, 2021 — A group of Bering Sea crabbers say the pandemic has slowed their fishing season, and they want more time to catch their quota before the state shuts down their season next week.

But the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has denied their request for an extension, citing low population numbers and an upcoming mating season.

For the few boats fishing bairdi crab this year, there could be a lot at stake if they don’t have time to catch their full quota.

“I’m thinking they don’t quite understand what we’re going through out here,” said Oystein Lone, captain of the 98-foot crab boat Pacific Sounder, which is based out of Dutch Harbor.

Until recently, Lone’s been fishing in the Bering Sea for snow crab, also known as opilio. But right now, he and his five-person crew have switched to fishing for a different type of crab called bairdi, which is also known as tanner crab.

Both bairdi and snow crab seasons open in October. But Lone recently switched to fishing for bairdi because that season is nearly over — even though as of Wednesday, only 46% of the total quota had been caught.

Read the full story at KUCB

Fresh COVID restrictions bode ill for tuna wholesalers, but online sales offer hope

December 29, 2020 — Seafood wholesalers at the Toyosu Wholesale Market in Tokyo, Japan, can expect lower restaurant demand at the holidays due to fresh COVID-19 restrictions, but some have teamed up with online marketers to sell high-end items like bluefin tuna and snow crab directly to consumers.

Restaurants and bars were asked on 14 December to close by 10 p.m. by the governors of Tokyo, Osaka, Aichi, Saitama, Kanagawa, and Okinawa prefectures. In Gifu Prefecture, shops that serve alcohol were asked to close at 9 p.m. Most of the closures only apply over the busy New Year holiday period, when many people traditionally visit their hometowns and meet friends and family.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Bering Sea crab pots drop as season opens

October 16, 2020 — Bering Sea crabbers are dropping pots for king crab, snow crab and bairdi Tanner when the fisheries get underway today, Oct. 15.

As expected, the catch was reduced for red king crab taken in the eastern Bering Sea waters of Bristol Bay — just 2.6 million pounds is a 30 percent drop from the 3.8 million pounds taken last season.

“We’ve heard from scientists in the past that there has not been good recruitment into that fishery for over a decade,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of the trade group Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, which represents harvesters.

For the first time since 2018, there will be a bairdi Tanner crab opener with a catch of 2.3 million pounds.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Bering Sea commercial fleets taking extra precautions during pandemic

April 15, 2020 — Commercial fishermen who have embarked on the Bering Sea for the 2020 season are taking extra precautions in light of the COVID-19 pandemic that has moved much of the world into isolation.

According to a report from The Bristol Bay Times, Bering Sea snow crabbers who are still out working the waters have been confined to their boats while making deliveries to processing plants. They’ve also been urged to avoid contact with plant workers to help prevent any potential spread of the deadly virus, the Intercooperative Exchange’s Jake Jacobson told The Times.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

JOHN SACKTON: How coronavirus could impact North American seafood

February 20, 2020 — A lot of people in the seafood industry are thinking about coronavirus (COVID-19). The major impact has been on shipping, tourism, and travel, all of which are vital to the North American seafood industry.

The question is whether this is a short-term event like a hurricane or political strike that impacts one area of our supply chain, or if this is a year-long global pandemic, leading to big changes in behavior in our markets.

Clearly we don’t know yet, despite people like the CEO of Mowi saying it is a short term event. However, we can already see some supply and demand disruptions, and we can prepare for others. After thinking about this for the last couple of weeks, here are some preliminary ideas.

Some products disrupted more than others initially

Most seafood products have not suddenly changed in price over the past few weeks. If you look at Urner Barry’s dashboard, the majority of items remain green, showing rising or steady prices.

Read the full opinion piece at Undercurrent News

Canadian snow crabbers outraged by US lawmakers’ call for ban

January 7, 2020 — Robert Hache, director general of the Association Des Crabiers Acadiens, a trade group that represents some 115 snow crabbers in Canada’s Gulf of Saint Lawrence, has a few choice words for the four US state of Maine lawmakers who recently sent a letter to Wilbur Ross, secretary of the US Department of Commerce.

The letter calls for the president Donald Trump administration to ban the import of Canadian snow crabs, suggesting their fishing practices are more responsible for the decline of endangered North American right whales than those of Maine lobster harvesters.

“I find it so demoralizing to see public figures use fake facts or lies to simply put blame on an industry in order to support their own political interests,” Hache told Undercurrent News. “This is very saddening.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: Biomass of snow crab in Bering Sea grew slower than expected

September 24, 2019 — Last week’s Crab Plan Team, an advisory group to the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, heard some good news about increased biomass of mature male snow crab in the US state of Alaska’s Bering Sea, but the survey showed less than what was predicted earlier this year.

The quota for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands crab fisheries will be set by Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) in mid-October. Alaska’s crab resources are jointly managed by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the ADF&G.

There was a “smaller increase in mature male biomass (MMB) of snow crab than projected, but it is still increasing”, noted stock assessment author Cody Szuwalski of NMFS. He and other scientists recommended one of eight assessment models that would result in a preferred MMB of 111.4 metric tons, with an OFL of 54,900t, 85% higher than last year, to the plan team.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: Optimism abounds in the Bering Sea crab fishery

May 14, 2019 — Bering Sea crabbers saw upticks in crab recruits during a good fishery for the 2018-19 season, along with strong prices.

The crab season opens in mid-October for red king crab, tanners and snow crab (opilio), and while fishing goes fast for red kings in order to fill orders for year-end markets in Japan, the fleet typically drops pots for the other species in January.

Crabbers said they saw strong showings of younger crab poised to enter the three fisheries. Only male crabs of a certain size can be retained for sale.

“For Bristol Bay red king crab, the reports were very positive,” said veteran crabber Jake Jacobsen, director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange, which represents the majority of Bering Sea crabbers. “I got a lot of reports from people saying they saw a lot of recruitment around, a lot of females and small crab, but some boats didn’t see any. So it depended on where you were. Overall, the catch seemed to go pretty fast and the fishing was good. It wasn’t scratchy at all for most of the boats.”

The price also was good. The red king crab fetched $10.33 per pound, up from $9.20 last season, for a catch of 4.3 million pounds.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

MSC delivers a pinch to Canada’s snow crab fishery

March 6, 2019 — Canada’s snow crab fishery is looking ahead at another year without its Marine Stewardship Council certification, but the real risk may be at the hands of the ecolabel.

Last March, the MSC scrambled to suspend its certification of Eastern Canada’s snow crab fishery after a high rate of right whale entanglements and deaths traced back to the fishery in 2017.

What happened next was a little surprising — the lack of a label didn’t have much effect on prices. Despite a buoyant market, Canada’s fixed-gear fleets as well as federal and provincial managers set about on an international mission to work with their neighbors to the south who have long been fighting the good fight to reduce right whale interactions.

Maine’s lobster fishery has been at the forefront of gear innovations to coexist with right whale migratory and feeding patterns. Ten years ago, the fleet made an expensive conversion to sinking groundline instead of using floating rope between pots on a trawl. But the population of an estimated 411 right whales has been expanding its territory into Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, where regulations haven’t been as robust.

Read the full story at National Fisherman