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Lund’s Fisheries Achieves International Accreditation to Conduct Microbiological Inspections Following Major Investments

September 27, 2022 — The following was released by Lund’s Fisheries:

Lund’s Fisheries is now accredited to conduct its own food safety inspections on all seafood that the company harvests, processes, and ships. The company’s in-house lab equipment and testing protocols, built out over the last year, have met internationally recognized standards, and can now be used to test all Lund’s products before going directly to consumers.

Before being sold, seafood products are required to be tested for microbiological contaminants such as E. coli, listeria, and salmonella. Usually, the products are sent to third-party laboratories to conduct the tests; few seafood companies in the U.S. have the capability to test their own products. To develop this capacity for itself, Lund’s Fisheries set out last summer to build out its testing capabilities, aligning them with international best standards and practices and finally getting them officially accredited this month.

“This accreditation recognizes our dedication to the quality and safety of our seafood,” said Joshua Farinella, Lund’s Director of Compliance and Quality Assurance. “Lund’s now has direct control over the full chain of custody, so we can guarantee that any product meets our high standards from the boat to the plate.”

US seafood firms plan product launches around National Seafood Month

September 26, 2022 — Houston, Texas, U.S.A.-based Fish Fixe, a direct-to-consumer premium seafood company, is celebrating National Seafood Month by challenging Americans to “swap their chicken for fish and reap the vast benefits.”

“We challenge Americans this October to change their weekday dinner routine and give seafood a try more often,” Fish Fixe Co-Founder and CEO Melissa Harrington said. “Instead of turning to chicken on a Tuesday night, try salmon or cobia. Seafood performs significantly better than chicken when you compare vitamin and mineral content and the all-important omega-3 fatty acids.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NFI President John Connelly announces cancer diagnosis

September 23, 2022 — John Connelly, the president of the National Fisheries Institute, a McLean, Virigina, U.S.A.-based nonprofit organization that is the U.S. seafood industry’s largest trade group, has been diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer.

Connelly informed the NFI Board of Directors about the diagnosis on 22 September, 2022, and NFI subsequently put out a press release that included a statement from Connelly.

Read the full article at SeafoodSoruce

Seafood Expo Asia returns for 10th edition and first in-person show since 2018

September 14, 2022 — Seafood Expo Asia (SEA), a seafood industry event drawing companies from 42 countries, kicked off the first day of the three-day expo in Singapore on 14 September, 2022.

The event, held in the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre, runs from 14 to 16 September and is the 10th edition of SEA. It also represents the first in-person SEA event that Diversified Communications – which also owns and operates Seafood Expo North America in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. and Seafood Expo Global in Barcelona, Spain – has held since 2018. (Editor’s note: Diversified Communications owns and operates SeafoodSource).

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Seafood industry putting greater focus on gender equity initiatives

August 26, 2022 — Gender equity and gender equality have moved to the forefront of work in corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts in the seafood industry, according to Seafood and Gender Equality (SAGE) Founder Julie Kuchepatov.

Organizations like SAGE and International Organisation for Women in the Seafood Industry (WSI) are working to raise awareness that the gender equity movement can help seafood firms both improve and strengthen the durability of their company and respond to increasing concerns from the marketplace or investors about a company’s gender values, according to Kuchepatov.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

A fisheries observer’s disappearance sheds light on a bigger problem

August 26, 2022 — At 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 6, 2018, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Benner Valencia picked up his phone. The person at the other end told him that his second son, biologist Edison Geovanny Valencia Bravo, had disappeared on board the tuna vessel Don Ramón, owned by the Ecuadoran company Delipesca.

The second thing they told him was that his son had jumped from the ship. He didn’t believe it. He still doesn’t believe it now, four years after that evening when he got the terrible news.

Valencia was a fisheries observer, a key role for ensuring the sustainability of marine resources. The job requires keeping detailed records of fishing activities and catches and submitting them to the authorities.

Valencia had been doing this job on the Delipesca ship since January 2018. According to a recent study in the journal Science Advances, Delipesca is one of 20 companies responsible for a third of the world’s reported industrial fishing-related crimes.

Benner Valencia, his father, agreed only reluctantly to an interview to talk about what, in his view, happened to his son. He said he had lost faith in the system and felt frustrated that after four years, there haven’t been any advances in the case and it’s still in the prior investigation phase at the Ecuadoran attorney general’s office.

Benner Valencia filed the document to declare the presumed death of Edison with the Ecuadoran Judicial Council on June 23, 2021. This is a procedure to make the death of a disappeared person official.

The last time Benner and Edison spoke was on March 3, 2018, three days before the call telling of Edison’s disappearance. According to Benner, he said he was fine and the fishing efforts would take a few days longer because the vessel still needed to catch a few more tons of fish. He also said he’d had an argument with the captain a few days before after complaining about his sleeping arrangements.

“He told me it was a bad mattress,” Benner Valencia said. “Apparently that caused frictions on board. They told him that was the only thing they had and no other observer had complained.”

Benner Valencia also said he’s received other calls from “people who pretended to be journalists” to get information from him and from whom he never heard again.

Mongabay Latam and Ecuadoran online news outlet La Barra Espaciadora had access, through Valencia’s attorney, to an expert report by the Ecuadoran Army’s National Directorate of Aquatic Spaces, written after Valencia’s disappearance. The report says there’s no record of “documents that can be used to offer a bigger analysis of the casualty,” such as a national traffic permit, a document to certify minimum security, a certificate of safety inspection, or a fishing permit.

All vessels are required to have these documents. The report concludes that the captain and the owner of the vessel are responsible for negligence, including lack of safety on board and little attention paid to the biologist whom they saw “acting weirdly” and who had said “someone wanted to hurt him.”

Read the full article at Mongabay

Local Catch Network kicks off campaign raising awareness for local fisherman, seafood harvesters

August 23, 2022 — A social media campaign is kicking off this week to raise awareness for community-based fisheries across North America.

“It’s a campaign to promote local and regional values-based small scale seafood businesses across North America,” said Paloma Henriques, a graduate assistant at the University of Maine.

This is the second year of the campaign that started after researchers found the pandemic highlighted the need to build resilient local and regional seafood systems.

“The global supply chains really faltered and struggled. If you’re looking at seafood, it’s one of the most highly traded commodities. A fish can be caught in one country processed in another and consumed in a third country,” Henriques said.

Read the full story at WABI

 

Sea Watch founder Barney Truex passes at age 70

August 23, 2022 — Leroy “Barney” Truex, a New Jersey surf clam fisherman who built Sea Watch International into the fishery’s biggest integrated harvesting and processing business, died Aug. 11 at age 70.

A lifelong resident of Mayetta, New Jersey, Truex grew up on the shore of Barnegat Bay with its traditional small-boat bay clamming fishery. In the mid-20th century entrepreneurial fishermen were building an offshore surf clam and ocean quahog industry. Truex went to work with his father Leroy Truex as a deck mate on surf clam vessels at age 16.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

The Global Seafood Market Conference Returns to California in 2023

August 22, 2022 — The following article was released by the National Fisheries Institute:

The Global Seafood Market Conference (GSMC) –seafood’s leading conference – returns to California in 2023 with a focused agenda including premier panels, insightful guest speakers, and unmatched opportunities to collect data. 

“GSMC differentiates itself from other conferences with its content and this year will be no different,” said the National Fisheries Institute’s Programs Director, Richard Barry. “Macroeconomic indicators, menu trends, inflation issues, post-COVID strategies to hold onto seafood consumption growth, trade disruptions — if it’s an issue in your seafood business we will have an expert examining it.”

Specialists from IRI, Datassential, Rabobank, Wells Fargo, and more will offer their expert perspectives. 

“This year, we’ll also have a new set of presentations,” said Barry. “Think of it as GSMC speed dating, one section featuring multiple panels that are shorter but cover things like emerging species, developing challenges, and growing trends. That’s in addition to the large category mainstay panels like shrimp, shellfish, value finfish, and salmon. Industry issues are evolving and so is GSMC.”

 The GSMC program runs from January 17-19 at the La Quinta Resort & Spa in Palm Springs, California. The week kicks-off with the annual pickleball tournament and meetings on January 15. For more, see the full agenda here.   

 NFI members should look out for GSMC content previews on the SoFISHticated podcast and remember the Early Bird rates are available now.  And don’t forget the GSMC Webinar Series will continue in 2023 with a look at supply chain developments and strategies for tackling operational issues.

Registration for GSMC 2023 is now open.