July 5, 2023 — China has experienced a surge in Russian seafood entering the country recently, and is reprocessing and selling much of it to markets that have banned Russian seafood imports, including the U.S.
Bilateral seafood trade between the China and Russia rose 80 percent in the first quarter of 2023, according to Robin Wang, head of seafood marketing agency SMH International in Shanghai. Overall, Sino-Russian trade rose 38.7 percent year-over-year in Q1.
June 23, 2023 — Alaska’s congressional delegation has introduced legislation to close loopholes in U.S. rules banning Russian seafood imports.
The U.S. ban on Russian seafood was part of a slew of sanctions and prohibitions announced by U.S. President Joe Biden in a March 2022 executive order designed to impose economic punishments on Russia for its ongoing invasion and occupation of Ukraine.
June 21, 2023 — The Pacific Maritime Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union have arrived at a six-year contract agreement that will cover 22,000 union dock workers at all 29 major ports along the U.S. West Coast.
The ILWU and PMA, which began negotiating the deal 1 July, declined to elaborate on its details, but it apparently includes a sharing of the surge in pandemic-era cargo profits in the form of retroactive compensation for employees, Reuters reported. It remains subject to ratification by the union.
June 15, 2023 — Predictions for record spending this Father’s Day are not swaying U.S. grocery chains from emphasizing their value seafood offerings.
Americans will collectively spend an estimated record-high USD 22.9 billion (EUR 21 billion) to celebrate Father’s Day on Sunday, 18 June, up from USD 20 billion (EUR 18 billion) in 2022, according to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual survey. Greeting cards and clothing will be the top items purchased for the holiday, according to the survey, which was conducted by Proper Insights and Analytics, but 52 percent of respondents said they will give fathers a special outing such as dinner or brunch.
June 13, 2023 — U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans to redistribute USD 2,598,890 (EUR 2,417,871) collected from antidumping and countervailing duties on imported seafood products to domestic producers in the 2023 fiscal year.
The vast majority of the collected funds came from crawfish tail meat imported from China, which accounted for USD 2.3 million (EUR 2.1 million). Vietnamese frozen fish fillets were the other major contributor, accounting for USD 302,754 (EUR 281,676). CBP also collected a total of USD 3,270 (EUR 3,042) for frozen warmwater shrimp and prawns imported from Ecuador, Brazil, India, and Thailand.
June 13, 2023 — Inflation continued to dampen U.S. retail demand in May 2023, even as fresh and frozen seafood prices dropped.
Inflation rose 4 percent in May year-over-year on an unadjusted basis, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall food prices were up 6.7 percent during the period, with food away-from-home inflation up 8.3 percent and food-at-home inflation up 5.8 percent.
June 13, 2023 — The U.S. marine economy had an economic impact of USD 432 billion (EUR 402 billion) in 2021, making up nearly two percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
The annual Marine Economy Satellite Account, a joint publication of NOAA and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, shows the marine economy bouncing back strongly from the Covid-19 pandemic, outpacing overall U.S. economic growth with 7.4 percent growth in GDP and 10.5 percent growth in sales. The marine economy had dipped six percent in 2020 as the pandemic took a toll.
June 8, 2023 — U.S. shoppers are spending more on groceries this year as they balance their desire for quality and healthiness with the higher cost of food, including seafood, according to two new surveys.
Besides cost, American consumers are also considering eating well, quality, nutrition, freshness, convenience, family food preferences, individual cooking skills and habits, and individual shopping experiences when deciding whether to purchase a particular food product, according to the Food Industry Association (FMI) Vice President of Research and Insights Steve Markenson. Health attributes, quality, and sustainability are also factors in seafood-purchasing decisions being made by U.S. consumers in 2023, Markenson said.
June 7, 2023 — National Fisheries Institute’s (NFI) recently released top 10 list of seafood consumption in 2021 indicates Americans consumed a record 20.5 pounds of seafood per capita – a 1.5 pound increase over 2020.
The increase followed a slight decrease in consumption in 2020, when Americans consumed 19 pounds of seafood – down slightly from the 19.3-pound average tallied in 2019. Both 2020 and 2021 were heavily influenced by the residual impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
June 6, 2023 — BRITISH chippies battling soaring prices could start serving fish imported from the US by the end of this year.
A huge rise in the cost of cod and haddock, alongside a tariff on Russian white fish, is forcing firms to look for cheaper alternatives, including rockfish, also known as Pacific perch, and hake, which the US west coast has in abundance. They both taste similar to cod.
Andrew Crook, president of the National Federation of Fish Friers, visited Oregon last month as part of a delegation from the UK seafood industry. He said the huge surplus of fish in the US could ‘take the pressure off’ needing to find expensive supplies closer to home.