May 21, 2020 — The coronavirus crisis is hitting seafood businesses even harder than the meat industry, prompting fishermen and processors to overhaul their operations and look for new customers.
U.S. supermarket shoppers are buying more fish and shellfish to prepare at home during quarantine, but business owners say the rise isn’t enough to offset the loss of sales to restaurants, where 70% of seafood is consumed, according to market-research firm Urner Barry.
Some companies are also contending with coronavirus outbreaks among workers. Blue Harvest Fisheries, a fishing and processing company in Massachusetts, closed its plant for three days in April after two workers tested positive for Covid-19. The closure cost Blue Harvest $200,000, said CEO Keith Decker, who said he is also paying hourly workers an extra $1 an hour and has added costly fogging and deep-cleaning procedures at the plant each day. At the same time, he said, production is down 25% because of reduced seafood demand and worker absenteeism.
“It’s a tightrope I’m walking,” Mr. Decker said.
In Alaska, which makes up 60% of the nation’s catch, according to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, seafood companies are spending millions to prevent infection among the armies of workers they bring to the state each year. Executives say virus cases there could hobble operations and devastate remote villages.