Economic Impact

August 1, 2013 — A new breed of investors is starting to shape business growth across the globe. These impact investors, as they are often called, look to put money into businesses that generate strong financial returns as well as environmental or social benefits.

In the past decade alone, impact investors poured millions of dollars into new innovations, helping grow businesses like Stonyfield Farms, Zipcar, and Grameen Bank. These companies, in turn, help shift the way business is done in their fields. But despite their strong interests in healthy food, the environment, and local community growth, impact investors have made very few investments in sustainable seafood.

With a $390B market in wild capture fisheries, a $120B market in fish farming that is predicted to grow exponentially in coming years, and numerous businesses poised to take advantage of growing consumer interest in the quality and origin of their food, what keeps investors from engaging in the seafood sector?

Last summer, together with leaders in the impact-investing field, we set out to answer this question and find new ways to connect sustainable seafood businesses with the capital investments needed to expand their enterprises. Through our research, we found that investors were only seeing four to five viable business proposals a year: a number too low to make the kind of comparisons that would help them evaluate deals or reduce risk in their investment portfolios.  They had the false impression that the fisheries and aquaculture sectors were too specialized, too complex, and without enough strong business ideas to merit building expertise in this area into investor teams.

At the same time, after years of working as consultants to sustainability-oriented fisheries businesses, we knew that there were entrepreneurs with viable business ideas out there. They just weren’t making meaningful connections with investors. To bridge this gap, we created Fish 2.0, a business competition that brings sustainable seafood businesses together with interested investors. Businesses compete for cash prizes and the opportunity to pitch their ideas to investors.

Read the full story at National Geographic

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — August 2, 2013 — Filmmaker Farhod Family has released a teaser for his yet-to-be-titled documentary film, in which he chronicles the hardships faced by fishermen in New England's groundfish industry.

Family began working on his self-funded documentary in September of 2012 after the federal government declared the New England groundfish industry to be in a state of economic disaster. Since then, Family has reached out to the National Science Center (NSC), attended New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) meetings, and met with the fishermen whose livelihoods are being threatened by cuts to their allowable catch.

Family's film will provide an in-depth look at the groundfish industry, from the efforts of New England's fishermen, young and old, to fish processors, and ice companies, all of whom play an important role in coastal communities and waterfront business throughout Massachusetts. Family's film will explore ports in Gloucester and New Bedford, as well as the town of Scituate, Massachusetts, a small fishing community that is on the brink of losing its entire fleet.

Watch the Teaser for the film

August 1, 2013 — Copper River Seafoods (CRS) and Alaskan Leader Fisheries (ALF) this week announced the creation of a marketing alliance to boost hook-and-line Alaskan wild cod trade.

Nick Delaney, managing director of ALF, said both firms will benefit from the other. The alliance will enable CRS to access high-quality whitefish and world-famous salmon all year long. ALF, meanwhile, will benefit from CRS’s domestic marketing expertise and strong customer relationships.

Scott Blake, president and chief executive officer of CRS, remarked that "both companies were formed by Alaskan fishermen who share many of the same core values, including the creation of more full-time jobs in Alaska."

ALF is one of the most important sources of sustainably harvested, frozen-at-sea, hook-and-line caught, wild Alaskan cod.

Less than a month ago, ALF acquired its most recent commercial fishing ship, the 184-foot Northern Leader, from Tacoma-based J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corp. It is expected to be fully operational in the Bering Sea this coming August.

Read the full story at FIS

July 31, 2013 — A few years back, when the feds advised Joe Orlando to increase his number of fishing permits, he invested some $400,000, continuing to follow all the rules and expecting to see the industry bounce back as promised.

He still signs checks to pay off those permits — permits he says are now all but worthless since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sliced  quotas and landing limits by up to 78 percent this spring.

Now, Orlando, seeing no way out of the financial ruin that has overtaken the industry here, has joined countless other Gloucester fishermen in parking his 65-foot boat on the selling block.

“We’re done,” Orlando said Tuesday. “I still owe for these permits and now I’ve got nothing left to fish. We’ve been under NOAA’s rebuilding plan for the last 10 years, and now there’s no one accountable for it.”

In the two months since the new fishing year took hold May 1, Orlando has already reeled in enough fish to meet the 12-month quota for two species left on his permits. Those permits lost a huge amount of their worth when NOAA reduced Gulf of Maine cod quotas by 78 percent, and cut quotas for other valuable fish stocks by 40 to 60 percent.

State and federal lawmakers have both pushed for an easing of the limits, noting that the Department of Commerce recognized the entire Northeast groundfishery as an “economic disaster” last fall. And state Attorney General Martha Coakley has filed a lawsuit challenging NOAA’s actions, and the validity of the science on which the limits are based.

But NOAA’s Gloucester-based Northeast regional administrator, John Bullard, has maintained that the dire cuts are needed to better rebuild the cod stocks  and other species, and has refused to back off or extend 2012 interim limits that, while cutting limits by some 22 percent, gave the fishermen viability.

“It’s a sad, sad situation. They just killed us all at once,” Orlando said. “They just shut the switch off with those cuts. I can’t keep treading water, it just doesn’t work.”

Gloucester fishermen say they know of no market wanting to purchase their vessels; and one thing is clear, they add. No one in our region would be interested in buying.

Orlando’s 65-foot Padre Pio, tied up alongside the Gloucester House off Rogers Street Tuesday, has yet to draw a prospective buyer.

One of Joe DiMaio’s four boats has attracted a potential out-of-town buyer, but that sale is pending to a scalloper, not a ground fisherman, interested in the 99-foot Princess Laura.

And even that sale would far from solve the problems for DiMaio, who wants to work. A federal plan to release some added quota for other stocks would help fishermen “survive,” he said, but that has not come. In the meantime, the numbers just do not add up if he chooses to send out a boat.

The fish DiMaio’s crew landed on a recent four-day trip brought in only about $1,977, he said; meanwhile, the boat burned through some $2,500 in fuel per day over the four days at sea.

“We’re all beaten. I don’t want to get out of the business. Unfortunately I’m going out of business,” DiMaio said.

The impact of the ongoing fishing crisis is far-reaching

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times 

July 29, 2013 — Alaskan Leader Fisheries and Copper River Seafoods have formed a marketing alliance that will promote hook-and-line caught Alaskan cod to retail and food service operators.

"This partnership is a win for both companies," said Nick Delaney, managing director of Alaskan Leader Fisheries, as the partnership was announced July 29.

The agreement gives Copper River Seafoods access to high quality wild caught cod, while Alaskan Leader Fisheries will benefit from CRS's strong customer relationships and domestic marketing expertise, Delaney said.

"Both companies were formed by Alaskan fishermen who share many of the same core values, including the creation of more full-time jobs in Alaska," said Scott Blake, president and chief executive officer of CRS.

The partnership enables CRS to offer its customers the highest quality whitefish, along with world-famous salmon on a year-round basis in quantities that will support high-volume programs, he said.

Alaskan Leader Fisheries is one of the largest sources of sustainably harvested, frozen-at-sea, hook-and-line caught, wild Alaskan cod.

The announcement came less than a month after Alaskan Leader Fisheries received delivery of its newest commercial fishing vessel, the 184-foot Northern Leader, from J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corp. in Tacoma, Wash. The Northern Leader, scheduled for christening in Seattle on July 31, is expected to be fishing in the Bering Sea in August.

Read the full story at The Cordoba Times 

SWAN QUARTER, N.C., — July 29, 2013 — In the mid-1990s, Mattamuskeet was one of about 45 crab processors in the state. Now there are 10.

Why? Imported crabmeat. Ninety-one percent of all the seafood Americans consume comes from overseas, according to the federal government. Crab is no different. While statistics aren’t easily available for the handpicked fresh crabmeat that Mattamuskeet produces, 99 percent of the 66 million pounds of canned crabmeat sold in the United States in 2011 was imported, according to numbers shared by the National Fisheries Institute, a trade association based in Virginia. It is imported from countries such as China, Indonesia, Venezuela and Mexico.

There was a steady pulse on the crab picking floor at Mattamuskeet Seafood in Swan Quarter last Tuesday morning. Cumbia music thumped on a radio. Knives clacked against the table. Forty-four gallon trash cans whirred across the floor, ferrying steamed blue crabs to each picking station and taking shells away.

There are two styles of crab picking among the 25 or so workers, depending upon which part of Mexico they call home. Those from the state of Tabasco on Mexico’s east coast line the crab up on the edge of the table to cut off its legs. Others, such as Dalia Salazar from the state of Sinaloa on Mexico’s west coast, do all the work while holding the crab in the palms of their hands.

Salazar, 38, can pick a crab in 15 seconds. First, she removes the bright red shell, then the legs, then the gills. Then she plucks out the prized chunks of jumbo lump meat, then the backfin meat and finally any extraneous meat from what she calls the “top.” Salazar has worked at Mattamuskeet for six years. She travels from Mexico each summer on a guest worker visa, arranged by her boss, Sherrie Carawan, who owns the company with her husband, Charles, and 35-year-old son Cory.

The Carawan family, who live in this town of 324 better known for its ferry stop on the way to Ocracoke, have been in the crab business since the 1980s and have so far survived the industry’s ups and downs. The only sure thing about their future is more ups and downs.

Crabs from the sounds and intracoastal waterway are North Carolina’s largest seafood industry with an overall value last year of $22.8 million. That’s a third of the state’s entire commercial seafood catch of $73 million of fish and shellfish in 2012.

Read the full story at the Charlotte Observer 

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS — July 29, 2013 — Remember two years ago when people were aghast at halibut quota share prices hitting $30 a pound?   It’s gone even higher.

A scan of top brokers shows the asking price has reached $50 for some IFQs in Southeast Alaska, with most going for $40-$43 per pound.

Meanwhile, prices for halibut `shares in the Central Gulf were ranging from $30-$38. 

For sablefish, quota shares in Southeast, were going from $26 to $32; slightly higher at west Yakutat – and in the $20-$30 range in the Central Gulf.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

GLOUCESTER, Mass. — July 24, 2013 — On a bright summer day, you would expect the waters off Massachusetts to be filled with fishing trawlers looking for cod. But this year, many of the boats are staying in port — and the crews fear their way of life may be slipping away.

For 400 years, cod dominated New England's fishing industry. It was central to the economy of Gloucester, Mass.

Al Cattone has fished here for three decades.

"It's the only job I've ever had," he said. "I started when I was 12 — summers fishing with my dad. And once I graduated high school, I started full-time." 

On a great day, he could reel in 2,000 pounds. But new government limits have reduced his catch to 500 pounds a day. He's on the water just once a week now instead of six.

How does he survive off of a once-a-week catch?

Read the full story and watch the video from CBS News

SOUTH PORTLAND, MAINE — July 22, 2013 — The following was released by the Commerical Marine Expo:

Commercial Marine Expo (CME), a regional B2B trade show serving commercial marine and commercial fishing industry segments on the Atlantic seaboard, will return to New Bedford, Massachusetts at the State Pier, June 11-12, 2014. CME rotates annually between New Bedford and Hampton, Virginia.

Commercial Marine Expo brings qualified marine buyers and sellers together in a unique, business-to-business environment in the heart of New England's commercial marine industries. It's an opportunity for the industry's leading suppliers and manufacturers to showcase new products and technology before an audience of hard-to-reach coastal and blue-water maritime professionals over two days.

CME is the only in-water commercial marine trade show in North America. New Bedford's State Pier location allows exhibitors to demonstrate products and processes inside or outside, and to display and operate ships and boats from the piers and docks.

Commercial Marine Expo 2014 is scheduled for Wednesday, June 11 and Thursday, June 12. Admission is free to trade professionals who pre-register.

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Click here to download the release as a PDF.