January 19, 2021 — Trident Seafoods is scrambling to contain a coronavirus outbreak at a plant on the Aleutian Islands on the eve of the pollock A season.
The Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based company announced on Monday, 18 January, that four roommates had tested positive at Trident’s plant in Akutan, Alaska, a processing center that takes in crab and cod as well as pollock from the Bering Sea fisheries.
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).
December 9, 2020 — A lack of fish in the freezers is an encouraging sign for Alaska salmon as we head into the new year, driven by increasing customer demand. But headwinds from trade disputes and the COVID pandemic also loom large on the 2021 horizon.
Those are some prime takeaways shared by Mark Palmer, president and CEO of OBI Seafoods, and Allen Kimball, vice president of global operations and sales for Trident Seafoods.
“We don’t see entering the 2021 season with any real big carryovers. And that’s always one of the downsides as we head into a new season, if there’s an abundance of two to four (pound) sockeyes or something. We’ve gone into seasons like that and it influences the new season pricing. But as we go into 2021, we should have a pretty clean slate and be ready to buy and ideally put it up in a better product form than we did this last year,” said Palmer, speaking at a webinar hosted by United Fishermen of Alaska.
The COVID pandemic this year forced a shift from workers producing fresh salmon fillets to lower value canned and frozen fish when the labor force was reduced and costly restrictions were imposed on processing lines.
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.
September 3, 2020 — Seafood companies bring thousands of seasonal workers to Alaska’s fishing towns every year, but this year’s summer workers were largely unseen. In Petersburg, due to COVID precautions, workers were restricted closed campuses — they were only allowed to go between the plant, dorms and cafeteria. Some workers said they felt resigned to it. Others said it felt like jail.
There are two major processing plants in Petersburg: OBI Seafoods — formerly Petersburg Fisheries, Inc — and Trident Seafoods. But before we get to the plants, we should start with the fishermen.
Nick Rahaim is a deckhand on a commercial fishing boat. During the pandemic, he and other fishermen have to stay on deck, away from the seafood processing workers who come on board to offload the catch.
“It’s been compared to the NBA bubble, like Disney World in Florida,” Rahaim said. “While it is a bubble, it’s very different because on the one hand you have people making millions, on the other you have people making close to minimum wage.”
August 28, 2020 — Hundreds of seafood processing workers come to Petersburg every year, creating a high-risk scenario for COVID transmission. Workers at the town’s two processing giants – OBI Seafoods and Trident Seafoods – live on a closed campus. But there are also Petersburg residents who work at the plants. So the local COVID testing program aims to identify and isolate positive cases before they can transmit from town into one of the plants.
At the beginning of the summer, seafood companies went to great lengths to safely fly the seasonal workforce to Alaskan towns like Petersburg. It took careful planning and millions of dollars to test and quarantine the workers.
“It could decimate the economy of the community and also impact the fisheries. We saw that in meat packing situations down south,” said Liz Bacom, manager of infection prevention at the Petersburg Medical Center. “And so they were very aggressive with getting a plan where they tested their seasonal workforce in Seattle before they came up here, and they were automatically quarantined for 14 days.”
As a result, two positive cases – one worker for Trident and one with Ocean Beauty Icicle Seafoods – were detected and isolated this summer.
August 4, 2020 — NOAA Fisheries closed the representative office in the U.S. Embassy Tokyo on July 31 after 33 years due to a sharp budget cut of Silver Spring, according to the leaving official’s announcement in Tokyo.
NOAA Fisheries opened its office in 1987 in the Commercial Service of the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo after establishing the U.S. EEZ and phasing out of international fleets. The mission of NOAA Tokyo was to develop the Japanese market for U.S. fishery products, such as Alaskan salmon and bottom fish. At that time Japan was the largest market for U.S. seafood, and the NOAA Tokyo office assisted many American small exporters of American lobster and sea urchin, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s triumphant entry into the market. It supported the Tokyo offices of American Seafood Company, Ocean Beauty Seafoods, and Trident Seafoods. It assisted seafood trade missions to Japan from U.S. states and native Americans. It negotiated with the Japanese government to permit the import of live oysters from Washington, Oregon, New York, and Connecticut.
July 24, 2020 — Major processors in Bristol Bay, Alaska, began posting base prices at USD 0.70 (EUR 0.60) per pound, just over half of last season’s price of USD 1.35 (EUR 1.16). Bristol Bay’s KDLG radio station reported that Peter Pan Seafoods, Trident Seafoods, Red Salmon/North Pacific Seafoods, and OBI Seafoods had all announced their price, with processing giant Silver Bay Seafoods yet to post.
Once one of the major processors in Bristol Bay announces the base price, the others typically follow suit. If a processor announces a lower price than a competitor, they risk angering their fleet and losing boats to other companies.
June 8, 2020 — American Seafoods Company has announced additional cases of COVID-19 aboard two more of its catcher-processor trawlers, the American Triumph and the Northern Jaeger. Testing revealed 25 positive cases between the two vessels. The ships ordinarily carry about 130 crewmembers each.
The American Triumph and Northern Jaeger are currently in port at Bellingham to offload their catch. A third vessel, the American Dynasty, had an outbreak resulting in 94 positive cases (86 at the time of her arrival in Bellingham and eight more afterwards). The Dynasty has since relocated to Seattle and her crew have moved into quarantine housing administered by King County.
“On the Northern Jaeger, one crew member reported feeling ill on-board last week and was transported to the hospital where they have tested negative for covid-19. The crew member is in the hospital recovering from their illness,” said ASC in a statement June 3.
Before the three vessels sailed in May, ASC required crewmembers to undergo a five-day quarantine period and a COVID-19 lab test. The company has since extended the pre-quarantine period to 14 days, a spokesperson told NPR.
May 21, 2020 — Joe Bundrant runs one of the world’s largest seafood companies. He knows that without healthy fishermen there will be no catch in the bountiful waters off Alaska’s coast.
Mr. Bundrant, the 54-year-old chief executive of Trident Seafoods, has enforced a strict quarantine to protect people and keep business going during the critical summer fishing season. The pandemic could wreak havoc on the Last Frontier, and Mr. Bundrant wants to avoid a repeat of the 1918 pandemic that decimated Alaska’s remote communities.
“If I’m going to put 145 people on a ship, including my son, and ask them not to get off the ship for six months, this is my only choice,” Mr. Bundrant said.
The $10 million effort includes isolating hundreds of workers for two weeks before sending them to sea and remote fishing villages, their rooms monitored by quarantined guards. On day 15, if they have tested negative for the virus, they are ushered by quarantined drivers to ships or private airplanes to begin a six-month fishing season in some of the world’s most remote waters.
There are consequences for those who refuse to play along. The six workers who tried to leave quarantine were fired.
Trident is the largest U.S. seafood company, employing 5,000 during the peak fishing season in Alaska. The state’s fishing industry catches 60% of the seafood in the U.S., including salmon, cod, halibut, rock fish and herring.
The fishing industry is seasonal, presenting a challenge for a company trying to prevent the spread of a virus in an industry considered among the most hazardous in the U.S.