Seafood.com News by John Sackton — August 27, 2014 — Alaska’s Senators and Congressman Don Young joined the call to boycott Russian Seafood products, writing a letter to Obama urging such a step if diplomacy cannot make progress. However, the US traditionally has not used food as a trade weapon, because we are such a large agricultural exporter.
Editorially, we don’t think this is a good idea. In our video today, we look at how a ban on Russian king crab, if it came about, would literally destroy the king crab market in the US. King crab has benefitted from the tremendous popularity of the Deadliest Catch, and marketers all recognize there is nothing worse than building expectations for a product, and than telling customers its not available. It simply makes customers mad and no retailer wants to do that. With Russia accounting for about 90% of the total US supply, an effective ban would essentially remove king crab from retailer and foodservice shelves – making it a niche specialty product, not the icon it is today.
Mike Ramsingh looks at the crabmeat market, and how shortages from Indonesia and Thailand have led to a banner year for domestic producers of crabmeat in the Chesapeake Bay. Yes, there are still many US crabmeat producers still operating.
Cooke Aquaculture’s True North division is returning to salmon processing in Maine. “There is an increased demand for fresh Atlantic salmon raised in Maine,” said CEO Glenn Cooke. “We are committed to increasing our farming sites to meet production volume efficiencies and consumer demand. Our goal is to increase our sustainable salmon production and year round employment in rural Maine.”
The Wall. St. Journal reports that high food prices for all proteins – seafood, beef and pork – are causing high end consumers sticker shock, and even impacting selections among wealthy households. Among seafood items, the high price and lower availability of shrimp has been key to consumer perceptions.
The Global Aquaculture Alliance is calling on shrimp farmers to fill out its global EMS impact survey, which is available online in 7 languages. It is part of a project to identify farms with best practices, and the results will be presented at the GOAL meeting held by the GAA in Ho Chi Minh city in early October.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.