Saving Seafood

Maine Coast Co. delivers lobsters around the world

May 31, 2016 — YORK, Maine – Every day is a “crazy juggling game” for Tom Adams, owner of the wildly successful lobster wholesaler Maine Coast Company. His product is live and perishable. His customers are in Seoul, South Korea, Madrid, Spain, or San Francisco. He has to worry about Homeland Security regulations, endless paperwork for China exports, planes that don’t take off on time.

“There’s a lot of risk when your product is controlled by Mother Nature,” said Adams. “We have to get it where it’s going in 48 to 60 hours. Any delay means it doesn’t get there alive. My strong point, I think, is that I have the gut instinct to most of the time play the market correctly. It’s no different than oil futures or some other commodity. It’s just that I’m dealing in lobsters.”

Located in a nondescript warehouse on Hannaford Drive in York, Maine Coast Company has had the kind of meteoric success other businesses would envy. Founded by Adams in 2011 with a $1.5 million loan, sales in 2015 were $43 million – a growth rate of 20 to 30 percent a year.

The company has expanded its space to accommodate tanks that can hold 155,000 pounds of lobster. At the end of June, it will open a $500,000, 5,000-square-foot facility on the Boston Fish Pier that will hold another 25,000 pounds — all the quicker for getting those lobsters on airplanes.

This growth is to accommodate an exploding global demand for Maine’s premier crustacean. According to the U.S. Census foreign trade division, lobster is the No. 1 commodity exported from Maine, and its growth has increased substantially from $231 million in 2012 to $331 million in 2015.

Read the full story at Seacoast Online

Maine lobster suppliers strategize to foil EU ban

May 9, 2016 — Maine lobster suppliers met behind closed doors with dealers from some of Europe’s biggest lobster importing countries in Brussels last week to discuss a pending ban on importing live North American lobsters into Europe.

The six Maine companies joined their Massachusetts and Canadian peers, as well as national trade officials, to discuss the proposed ban with buyers and trade officials from eight European countries, including the three biggest importers of Homarus americanus: France, Italy and Spain. The meeting occurred at the world’s largest seafood industry trade show, said spokesman Gavin Gibbons of the National Fisheries Institute, an American seafood industry trade group.

About 75 people met for 90 minutes to talk about how to avoid the all-out ban that Sweden asked the European Union to adopt in March after finding North American lobsters in European waters.

“Brussels was productive,” Gibbons said. “Unnecessarily excluding live North American lobsters from that market would have real impacts on both sides of the Atlantic, sales and jobs. So, no one is taking this lightly.”

In March, Sweden petitioned the European Union to declare the North American lobster an invasive species, which would ban live imports to the EU’s 28 member states. It based its petition on an 85-page risk assessment that claims the discovery of a small number of North American lobsters in the waters off Great Britain, Norway and Sweden over the last 30 years, including one female lobster carrying hybrid eggs, proved cross-breeding had taken place. The Swedish scientists say a ban would protect the European lobster from cross-breeding and diseases carried by the North American lobster.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Fishing Quotas Proposed for Atlantic and North Sea

November 11, 2015 — The Commission proposes to maintain or increase the fish quotas for 35 stocks, and reduce catches for 28 stocks on the basis of the scientific advice received.

Some of the stocks facing increases include megrim in the North Sea and West of Scotland and horse mackerel in Northern Spain.

Due to a lack of improvement, stocks with cuts include Celtic Sea and English Channel cod and haddock by up to almost 30 per cent and 27 per cent respectively.

The Irish Sea sole fishery has a huge proposed cut of 100 per cent which would effectively close the fishery, said Europêche.

The Commission has also proposed a complete ban on the fishing of sea bass from 1 January to 30 June and a limitation to 1000kg per vessel per month in some areas only from 1 July.

Quota Top Ups

The EC is also proposing an increase in fishing opportunities to help fishermen in the transition to the new obligation to land all catches. This is the first time the Commission proposes so-called quota “top ups” for all the fisheries under the landing obligation as of 2016.

This extra quota aims to compensate fishermen for the extra fish they will have to land. On the basis of scientific advice to be received by mid-November the Commission will, later in the month, propose the catch increase including all the quantities that need to be landed.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

Spain Imposes Huge Fines on Illegal Fishing Beneficiaries

June 25, 2015 — The Spanish Government has announced penalties that could reach more than 11 million Euros against Spanish individuals and companies involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

An EU coalition of three international NGOs, including Environmental Justice Foundation, Oceana and WWF has described it as a historic moment in the battle against IUU fishing and are calling on other EU member states to follow suit with their own nationals.

The fines, the highest known imposed by an EU government, are issued against companies and individuals for 19 serious infringements linked to illegal fishing activities in the Southern Ocean.

The companies are allegedly linked to a Galician syndicate suspected of poaching Patagonian toothfish in Antarctic waters for more than a decade.

Maria Jose Cornax, Fisheries Campaign manager at Oceana, welcomed the announcement: “This is the highest known sanction and the first of its kind ever imposed in the European Union regarding IUU fishing.

“Today’s announcement sends a clear warning message to citizens who until now have felt protected by anonymous shell companies in offshore havens and flags of convenience.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

 

Spain Proposes Big Fines for Alleged Antarctic Fish Poachers

June 23, 2015 — MADRID — Authorities in Spain have accused a company there of running a lucrative international operation that illegally captured vast amounts of an Antarctic fish prized in top restaurants.

The Spanish government proposes fining the company as much as 11.4 million euros ($12.9 million) for alleged poaching of the Antarctic toothfish, a delicacy marketed in North America as Chilean sea bass.

A government statement said the operation was concealed behind a labyrinthine system of foreign front companies, with fishing boats flying the flags of African and Asian countries to mask ownership.

Spain did not name the companies, but New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Murray McCully told The Associated Press in an interview they were all linked to Vidal Armadores SA, which was fined 150,000 euros in 2010 for illegal fishing near Antarctica.

The Spanish government declined comment when asked why it did not name Vidal or the front companies it allegedly used.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Spanish government cracks down on illegal fishing with €11m in fines

June 22, 2015 — The EU’s recent high profile fishing policy reforms took a major step forward this week as the Spanish government announced potential penalties of up to €11m (£7.8m) for those engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The fines, which were issued late last week against companies and individuals for 19 serious incidents, are the highest to be imposed by an EU government and have been described as “historic” by a coalition of three international NGOs, including the Environmental Justice Foundation, Oceana, and WWF.

More than 3,000 documents were analyzed by the Spanish Government as part of ‘Operation Sparrow’, which also saw officials raid fishing companies suspected of breaching fishing regulations.

Read the full story at Business Green