Economic Impact

April 1, 2013 — Federal fishing managers officially announced their plans to drastically cut the amount of fish that can be caught in New England waters.

Watch the full video from WWLP

 

April 3, 2013 — The Gulf of Maine Research Institute has informed Saving Seafood that it has Trawl to Table Gloucester open for industry members.

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute invites groundfish permit holders and captains to attend a day-long event focused on building awareness of the sustainability of the groundfish resource and improving the profitability and resilience of fishing businesses.

Please join chefs, restaurant owners, and food service professionals for an informative gathering that will include:
– Interactive gear displays,
– The latest in gear research and quality handling technologies,
– Important information on accessing restaurant and food service markets, and
– Emphasis on the value of promoting underutilized species.

Restaurants sell 70% of the seafood consumed in the United States.

Chefs and restaurant owners influence what consumers want. Successful chefs are most concerned with quality of product, traceability, and sustainability. Yet, they often lack access to the latest and most accurate information on Gulf of Maine seafood and the industry that harvests it. This is your opportunity to have a conversation with chefs from your area about the importance of sourcing locally and supporting Gloucester’s fishing fleet. Space for this event is limited and will be available on a first-come, first- served basis. Please RSVP soon to reserve your spot by contacting Patty Collins at (207)228-1625 or patty@gmri.org.

When: April 10th, 2013 from 8:30am to 4:30pm

Where: Maritime Gloucester, 23 Harbor Loop, Gloucester, MA 01930

This event is hosted by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, in partnership with Maritime Gloucester and Cape Ann Fresh Catch, with funding from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

For more information on Trawl to Table please visit www.gmri.org/trawltotable

 

 

April 1, 2013 —  Where have the fish gone? Unsurprisingly, scientists, regulators, and fishermen all have their own hypotheses. Some claim that climate change has pushed the schools into deeper water; others say that predators like seals and dogfish have devoured the cod; still others claim that large boats have been hammering spawning aggregations and preventing the fish from breeding. Whatever the case, cod are few and far between in the once-fecund waters that lured Europeans to the New World. “There’s been an extreme contraction of the resource,” says Aaron Dority, director of the Downeast Groundfish Initiative, a project to rebuild Maine’s groundfish stocks. “You can’t find Gulf of Maine cod outside of a few select areas.”

Utter collapse wasn’t what regulators expected back in 2010, when the New England Fisheries Management Council implemented a catch shares system for the region’s groundfish industry. Catch shares are a form of fisheries management that turn public fish into private property, by splitting up a fishery’s scientifically determined “Total Allowable Catch” into exclusive slices of a pie. Each fisherman is granted a slice of the pie, and fishermen are allowed to buy, sell, or rent their slices (Read “Net Benefits,” the Journal’s earlier report on the system).

Catch shares have been credited with restoring fisheries from Alaska to New Zealand, and at their best they can be a boon to fishermen by promoting flexibility. If, say, one boat-owner is looking to scale up his operation while another has a herniated disk that’s keeping him off the water, catch shares allow the laid-up fisherman to rent or sell his share to the ambitious one. Today, 15 different US fisheries are governed by catch shares, and several more programs are in development. (While most catch share programs allot fishermen “Individual Transferable Quotas,” or ITQs, New England’s system organizes fishermen into cooperatives called sectors, which distribute shares among their members.)

Yet while catch share programs hold promise, they are not without problems. Foremost among these is determining how large a slice each fisherman should receive. Most catch share systems — New England’s included — use historical catch data to determine allocations, a method that some call “rewarding the pigs.” The fishermen most responsible for historic overfishing are grandfathered into the lion’s share of future fish. Meanwhile, younger fishermen without extensive catch histories receive comparatively tiny slices, and are forced to supplement their shares by leasing quota — often from “armchair fishermen” who keep getting paid to rent out their shares even after they’ve retired.

For those fishermen who weren’t fortunate enough to get their allotment for free, renting the right to fish can excise a huge chunk from their bottom lines. One study of British Columbia’s halibut fishery found that fishermen who were forced to lease large amounts of quota tended to be “less viable or marginally viable.” In New England, where the Total Allowable Catch was set at an extremely low level, the divide between the haves and the have-nots was especially stark. “If you’re fortunate enough to be granted sufficient initial allocation to fish, then you’re at a significant advantage relative to a fisherman who’s been granted a far lower initial allocation,” says Dority.

As these unlucky lessees quit fishing, and armchair fishermen discharge their quota to the highest bidder, access to fish often ends up concentrated in the hands of the fishermen with the most buying power. According to a NOAA review released in December 2012, that appears to be what has happened in New England’s groundfisheries since the inception of catch shares. In two years, the total number of vessels regularly catching groundfish dropped from 601 to 450, a loss of 25 percent of the fleet, and trips to sea taken by crewmen declined by 11 percent. Meanwhile, the number of boat owners with three or more vessels increased by a third, and over 85 percent of groundfish revenues piled up in the hands of just 20 percent of vessel owners. In all, there are now fewer fishermen in New England than when catch shares began, and the ones left standing are catching a larger share of the fish.

Read the full story at Earth Island Journal

 

 

April 1, 2013 — Looks like Old Man Winter has been able to accomplish what lobster fishermen haven’t been able to do for themselves over the past few seasons. He’s driven up the price of lobster.

Last week fishermen – those who fish during the winter months – were being paid a shore price of $8 a pound for their lobsters. That’s a far cry from the $3 price back in the fall.

And while lobster prices typically go up over the winter months when there is a shortage of supply, in the past couple of seasons the higher price still wasn’t what fishermen had been hoping for.

There has been a catch with the higher price, however, and it hasn’t always been in the lobster traps. Part of the reason for a more limited supply has been due to the weather over the past few months. Numerous storms and high winds in January, February and March have kept fishermen ashore more often than in past years. Although now that spring has arrived, fishermen are getting out on the water more.

“Without a doubt weather has been a major factor for the first time in four or five years,” says Marc Surette, the executive director of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association. “On top of that it seemed to set in earlier than usual and rarely offered many windows to get out. That limits the supply drastically when coupled with very small catches throughout the winter.”

Surette called the situation this winter a “perfect example” of how the supply/demand formula works in the fishery – fewer lobsters landed equals higher price. At this same time, this isn’t a peak time for the product.

Read the full story at the Yarmouth County Vanguard

 

 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — March 29, 2013 — The weather out at sea is putting lobster-lovers in a pinch by driving up the price.

Stormy, late-winter weather on the East Coast has put a damper on the catch, and the lack of supply means the crustaceans' cost is spiking in markets and restaurants.

"Right now, the weather is brutal," said Charleston Santos, the fish buyer at Guido's Fresh Marketplace on South Street in Pittsfield. "There's nobody out there to catch them, to fish them out."

Live, hard-shell lobsters are supplied to Guido's by True World Foods in New Jersey. The last quote Santos received for a shipment of live lobsters was $12.99 a pound, he said.

Currently, lobsters at Guido's run $14.99 a pound because of the season, but typically sell for between $8.99 and $10.99.

Read the full story at the North Adams Transcript

WEST YARMOUTH, Mass., — March 29, 2013 — The Cape Cod Times weekly phone survey of fish markets across the Cape shows the median per pound retail price for 2-pound lobster climbing over the past two weeks to where it is $4 higher than the same time last year. One fish market was charging $20 a pound.

The bins in the display case at Cape Codder Seafoods were overflowing with glistening fresh fish, scallops and shellfish, harvest from the deep waters off Georges Bank all the way down to the shallow bays of Falmouth.

That abundance was not true of the lobster pools, which were populated by just a few specimens, huddled in the corners.

"I'm only carrying the bare minimum," manager Shawn Cahoon said. The reason: Lobster wholesale prices are too high, higher than they've been in years.

Cahoon held up a price sheet from his wholesaler that showed double-digit figures for most sizes. He sells them for $13.99 per pound, just a couple of dollars above the wholesale price, he said.

"Nobody wants to touch them at the high price," Cahoon said. "I'm hoping the price comes down."

After news stories detailing a record harvest in both Maine and Canada last year, you can pardon lobster customers for being skeptical about the going price for the king of crustaceans.

The vagaries of lobster pricing are no longer as simple as a fisherman going out in a boat, catching lobsters and selling them to fish markets. American lobster is now an international commodity and a highly regulated species. The price people pay can be affected more by what's happening in Nova Scotia, Beijing or London than what fishermen in Vinalhaven, Maine, or Sandwich are experiencing.

Read the full story from New Bedford Standard Times

 

 

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [seafoodnews.com] March 28, 2013 — Diversified Business Communications said the recent 2013 International Boston Seafood Show and co-located event Seafood Processing America held March 10-12, was the largest in its more than thirty year history.

More than 19,000 buyers and suppliers attended the International Boston Seafood Show and Seafood Processing America, according to the event's organizers. The show spanned over 185,780 square feet in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center with 1,017 exhibiting companies representing 46 countries.

“The event continues to grow even after 31 editions,” said Liz Plizga, Show Director for Diversified Business Communications. “The biggest area of growth is coming from countries outside of the U.S. including Canada, China, Chile, Japan and Morocco. With the expanded international participation, buyers in North America truly have access to products from all over the world.”

Next year’s events will be held March 16 – 18, 2014 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center under their new names Seafood Expo North America and Seafood Processing North America.

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

 

 

 

March 26, 2013 — Late winter storms and other factors have driven lobster prices so high that restaurants have started taking them off their menus.

The price of Homarus americanus, or American lobster, the species found mainly in the North Atlantic between New Jersey and Labrador, usually increases at this time of year as reserves from the fall season are depleted by sales during New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day. But the current price of American lobster in Boston, the international distribution center for the species, is more than 30 percent higher than it was at this time last year, according to Bill Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobsterman’s Association, a trade group.

Adler said Massachusetts distributors are currently paying between $9.50 and $10.50 per pound for lobsters from Canada, where the majority of lobsters available at this time of year are kept in coastal pounds. Last year at this time, the price was between $6.50 and $7.25 per pound. “I’ve never seen it this high,” he said.

“It’s just a short-term supply situation,” said Geoff Irvine, executive director of The Lobster Council of Canada, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “We’ve had such mild winters [recently] that fisherman have been out in March, and they really haven’t been able to this year.”

Read the full story at Nation's Restaurant News

March 27, 2013 — Fast-food chains are working harder this year to capitalize on the Catholic tradition of eating fish during Lent, as seasonal promotions become more crucial in the competitive landscape.

More restaurants are advertising fish sandwiches, and the traditional leaders, like McDonald's Corp. (MCD), are getting more innovative with their offerings.

McDonald's typically times the promotion of its classic fish filet sandwich with the six weeks of Lent, to take advantage of Catholics who don't eat red meat or poultry on Fridays–or some during the entirety of the season.

But this year, McDonald's came out with new Fish McBites, a seemingly odd twist on its chicken poppers. The company credited the menu addition for helping McDonald's achieve better-than-expected results in the U.S. in February.

"My instinct is that more people are spending more media dollars and competitive activity promoting fish products this year," said Russ Klein, chief marketing officer of Arby's Restaurant Group. "The industry has been somewhat sluggish in the past several months, and in that sense, it does, in fact, become a [market] share game."

Read the full story at Fox Business

March 26, 2013 — Authors of a new Natural Resources Defense Council report said the results prove that critically overfished species can be rebuilt, even from very low levels, when Mother Nature is given a chance to recover. That's good news in a world where rampant overfishing is a critical concern.

Maggie Raymond, executive director of Associated Fisheries of Maine, said the drastic measures left many cod fishermen, processors, and other fishery-dependent businesses she represents uncertain about management efforts they haven't seen pay off.

"Fishermen in our association question the constantly changing results of fisheries science," she said. "For example, just a few years ago, fisheries scientists and managers said that Gulf of Maine cod were at the highest biomass level in 30 years. The fishing industry fished within the scientifically set quotas, and despite that compliance, today the Gulf of Maine cod population is, according to the same scientists, at a record low. This volatility in advice makes business planning very difficult for fishermen, and not surprisingly leads to frustration and some level of disbelief about the quality of the science.

"NOAA Fisheries has acknowledged that there are as yet unexplained environmental factors that are inhibiting rebuilding," she continued. "Industry would argue that increased water temperature and inflated predator populations, such as dogfish and seals, are inhibiting stock rebuilding."

Whatever the causes of collapse, many fishermen have been hit hard. "The New England groundfish fleet has shrunk significantly over the past several years, and those who remain have already made huge sacrifices and have substantial financial investment at stake," Raymond said. "Most fishermen's homes are tied to the debt, so that reality adds to the current level of anxiety about the future."

Read the full story at National Geographic