March 13, 2020 — The Global Aquaculture Alliance and other companies and nonprofits involved in the seafood industry have rescheduled events originally planned for Seafood Expo North America to online meetings and webinars.
The GAA Stakeholder Update Meeting will take place as a webinar on 19 March at 11 a.m. EST. GAA board and committee meetings, which are closed to the public, will also be held online.
March 11, 2020 — A number of seafood companies that were planning on exhibiting at or holding events during Seafood Expo North America in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. – postponed by organizer Diversified Communications last week due to the COVID-19 outbreak – are going ahead with online versions of those meetings and live social media demonstrations.
In an effort being coordinated by Jennifer Bushman, principal of Route to Market, a strategic development consultant for aquaculture companies, this ad hoc group of seafood companies have joined together on a social media and publicity campaign dubbed the “No Show Fish Show.”
March 11, 2020 — Diversified Communications, the organizer of Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America, is conducting a survey to determine its customers’ preferences for when the postponed event should take place.
Originally scheduled to take place from 15 to 17 March, the event was postponed on 3 March due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
March 3, 2020 — Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America, scheduled to take place 15 to 17 March in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., has been postponed by the event’s organizer, Diversified Communications.
The decision was made on 3 March in response to growing concerns over the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, according to Diversified Communications Group Vice President Liz Plizga.
March 2, 2020 — Organizers for the upcoming Seafood Expo North America in Boston are encouraging attendees to follow a “no-contact, no-handshake policy” because of coronavirus concerns.
The Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America trade event — at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in the Seaport, from March 15 to 17 — will also have significantly fewer visitors from Asia because of the highly contagious disease.
“Due to travel restrictions into the United States, we are expecting to see an impact from Mainland China, which annually represents 5% of the combined visitor and exhibitor attendee base and 9% of the exhibit space,” a spokeswoman for the expo said in a statement. “Despite the situation, we have more than 1,100 companies that are still planning on exhibiting this March.”
About 80% of the expo visitors come from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
February 28, 2020 — Diversified Communications, the company that organizes Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America (SENA) each year, said it is prepared for potential impacts to the event caused by COVID-19, commonly known as coronavirus.
The Expo, which will take place from 15 to 17 March, has been the subject of speculation regarding the coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Rumors that the Expo could be cancelled, or that the event has been heavily impacted, are ”simply not true,” according to Mary Larkin, president, Diversified Communications USA.
February 26, 2020 — There will be a lot of waving going on at Seafood Expo North America in Boston next month. Diversified Communications, the organizers of the Boston Seafood Show, released yet another update for attendees and exhibitors who are concerned about the coronavirus and the upcoming event.
The latest recommendation from Diversified? “No-contact, no-handshake policy.”
February 18, 2020 — It’s 5 a.m. and the moon looms high. The cranes flanking the Seaport’s newest high-rise are stilled. At this hour, no buses cruise down the main boulevard, no corporate workers hurry to sleek office buildings, and the flat screens at Tony C’s Sports Bar & Grill are as black as the pre-dawn sky. But outside of Bay 21 on the Boston Fish Pier, the morning catch, jiggling like Jell-O, has already arrived.
Rocky Neck Fish owner Steve Gennodie spots the delivery: four cheesecloth bags full of shelled scallops so fresh they’re still twitching. He bellows “Goodbye, Sunshine!” to the boat captain who hauled them in from Provincetown. Mauricio Jantes, Gennodie’s head fish-cutter, slices open the cloth to reveal a shimmering mountain of fleshy white bivalves and pops one into his mouth.
The workday starts before first light at the Boston Fish Pier, a vestige of a blue-collar Boston now surrounded by acres of gleaming glass towers, hotels, and condo buildings. What once defined the South Boston Waterfront is now an outlier, an oddity in fact. It is fair to ask, why is it still here? But also, would Boston be truly Boston if it were not?
For decades after its 1914 debut, the wharf churned with activity next to an expanse of undeveloped land and railroad tracks. Boats lined up 10 deep to offload their catch and sell it at the auction house, the stately building at the tip of the 1,200-foot pier. But dwindling stocks and heavy regulation buckled the industry in the early 2000s, pushing some occupants out of the pier, threatening those who remained, and ending the auction entirely. Nowadays, the wharf has undergone something of a revival, transformed into a bustling processing hub where trucks deliver more catch than trawlers, and fishmongers rely less on local sales than a global network of imports and exports.
In an effort to preserve the neighborhood’s maritime history, Massport, the agency that has owned the pier since 1972, has thrown a line to the local fishing industry in recent years, keeping rents well below what new development projects in the Seaport typically fetch and funneling money into the maintenance of the 106-year-old wharf. Meanwhile, Rocky Neck and the 18 other seafood tenants that fill the pier’s twin brick row buildings have shifted their business models to meet changing consumer demands.
February 10, 2020 — The following was released by the Southeastern Fisheries Association:
The Southeastern Fisheries Association has been working to defend, protect, and enhance the commercial fishing industry in the southeastern United States since its establishment in 1952.
The issues affecting the industry vary from region to region, based on the geographical areas of the US with commercial fishing groups. We intend to connect with organizations like ours – and yours – to discuss plans and ideas for the future of US commercial fishing as a whole.
SFA invites your organization to join us for a conversation on the current and future state of the US commercial fishing industry at the inaugural Fisheries Forum, for those in your group that are attending the Seafood Expo. We have drafted a few topics to get the conversation started and welcome your suggestions to be considered for discussion at this event in Boston.
Some topics of discussion include:
We hope you will come share your thoughts, ideas and success stories with us on Saturday, March 14 at 3:00pm at the Westin Boston Waterfront. Together, we can pave a way forward for the US Commercial Fishing Industry.
Let us know if you have any questions/comments by sending an email to Laurie@SFAonline.org for the quickest response. If you prefer, we can also set up a phone call.
Thanks so much and we hope you’ll join us in Boston for this free event.
January 31, 2020 — Seafood Expo North America organizer Diversified Communications said on 31 January the novel coronavirus outbreak has not affected its plans to host North America’s largest seafood expo, slated to take place 15 to 17 March at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC) in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
The coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, has spread rapidly in China and isolated cases have been found in other parts of the world, including eight in North America. “Diversified Communications has been responding to public safety situations for many years and has an effective crisis management protocol in place,” Diversified Communications Seafood Group Vice President Liz Plizga told SeafoodSource. “We have great confidence in our partnerships with the cities and local authorities where our events take place, and we will continue to update our customers on new developments. We look forward to a safe and successful event.”