Saving Seafood

Record-high king crab prices not slowing retail sales

February 19, 2021 โ€” Crab sales at U.S. retailers have hit record highs, with the category as a whole up over 60 percent, and king crab has been buoyed by the surge.

Customers at the retail level are buying record numbers of king crab, according to Michael Kotok, the president of Buffalo, New York, U.S.A.-based Arctic Fisheries. Kotok was speaking during the National Fisheries Instituteโ€™s Global Seafood Market Conference webinar series; SeafoodSource is providing exclusive coverage of the GSMC webinar series, which will be providing exclusive market-focused content throughout 2021.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

USDA, FDA, CDC: โ€œNo Credible Evidenceโ€ Food Packaging Transmits COVID-19

February 18, 2021 โ€” The following was released by the National Fisheries Institute:

Today the leadership of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) all emphasized that food or food packing is not a likely source of COIVD-19 transmission. The rare joint statement said there is โ€œno credible evidenceโ€ that the illness is transmitted that way.

โ€œTodayโ€™s statement is an example of experts adhering to science and translating that high-level understanding into an important public health message,โ€ said Lisa Weddig Vice President for Regulatory and Technical Affairs at the โ€ŽNational Fisheries Institute.

In todayโ€™s statement the USDA, FDA and CDC highlighted the safety of the U.S. food supply saying, โ€œconsumers should be reassuredโ€ that their confidence is based on โ€œoverwhelming international scientific consensus.โ€

โ€œFrom epidemiologists to biologists, authorities are confident in the safety of the seafood supply and, whatโ€™s more, health experts cite seafoodโ€™s role in supporting a healthy immune system,โ€ said Weddig.

The groups noted that a recent opinion from the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods said, โ€œdespite the billions of meals and food packages handled since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, to date there has not been any evidence that food, food packaging or food handling is a source or important transmission route for [the disease.]โ€.

NFI encourages companies and countries to ensure their actions and policies are based on this scientific fact.

Demand up, supply down in blue and red swimming crab market

February 18, 2021 โ€” The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the blue and red swimming crab market are ongoing, and have combined to make the industry a more complicated prospect for importers.

Chicken of the Sea Vice President and National Fisheries Institute (NFI) Crab Council Executive Robert Kragh โ€“ speaking during NFIโ€™s Global Seafood Market Conference webinar series โ€“ said the impacts of COVID-19 on the market were immediate from a producer perspective. SeafoodSource is providing exclusive coverage of the GSMC webinar series, which will be providing exclusive market-focused content throughout 2021.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NFIโ€™s John Connelly: US seafood industry faces whole new set of challenges under Biden

February 17, 2021 โ€” Donald Trumpโ€™s presidency was a mixed bag for the U.S. seafood industry, according to National Fisheries Institute President John Connelly. Now almost a month into the presidency of Joe Biden, the industry faces a whole different set of challenges, Connelly told SeafoodSource.

Connelly is optimistic Biden will be less aggressive in the use of tariffs than Trump, and he said heโ€™s comforted by the fact that Bidenโ€™s picks for U.S. Commerce secretary and U.S. trade representative, Gina Raimondo and Katherine Tai โ€“ both of whom are awaiting confirmation votes by the U.S. Senate โ€“ are familiar with the seafood industry. But Bidenโ€™s environmental initiatives may prove thorny for the industry, and it remains to be seen whether the administration will prioritize the reopening of the foodservice sector, Connelly said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Post-COVID recovery could see spate of seafood company mergers and acquisitions

February 11, 2021 โ€” When the world begins to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, some prominent seafood executives are predicting a busy period of mergers and acquisitions.

Speaking during the National Fisheries Instituteโ€™s 2021 Global Seafood Market Conferenceโ€™s economic outlook panel, seafood company advisors and CEOs said they expect a combination of factors will lead to increased M&A activity. As companies begin to see a turnaround from the COVID-19-related economic downturn, access to cheap financing could spur companies to look for new opportunities, according to Antarctica Advisors LLC Managing Partner Ignacio Kleiman.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

One Alaska king salmon is worth the same as two barrels of oil right now

February 10, 2021 โ€” Seafood sales โ€œare on fireโ€ in Americaโ€™s supermarkets and one king salmon from Southeast Alaska is worth the same as two barrels of oil.

Thatโ€™s $116.16 for a troll-caught chinook salmon averaging 11 pounds at the docks vs. $115.48 for 2 barrels of oil at $57.74 per barrel on Feb. 3.

As more COVID-conscious customers opted in 2020 for seafoodโ€™s proven health benefits, salmon powered sales at fresh seafood counters. Frozen and โ€œon the shelfโ€ seafoods also set sales records, and online ordering tripled to top $1 billion.

Those are some takeaways from a National Fisheries Institute Global Marketing Conference hosted online by SeafoodSource News.

Here is a sampler of what experts called โ€œeye-poppingโ€ 2020 retail sales reflecting Americaโ€™s trend to eat more fish:

IRI, a world leader in market data, said overall sales at in-store fresh seafood counters jumped 28% to $871 million, led by salmon with a 19% increase to $2.2 billion.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

NFIโ€™s Robert DeHaan: Action on climate change, COVID, multilateralism will guide Bidenโ€™s first months

February 10, 2021 โ€” Just before Joseph Biden was sworn in as president of the United States a month ago, his chief of staff, Ronald Klain, laid out the obstacles ahead for the administration.

โ€œWe face four overlapping and compounding crises: the COVID-19 crisis, the resulting economic crisis, the climate crisis, and a racial equity crisis,โ€ Klain wrote in a memorandum issued to staff on 16 January.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Glenn Cooke, Ian Smith offer timeline for COVID-19 foodservice recovery

February 9, 2021 โ€” The global COVID-19 pandemic has been a mixed bag for the seafood industry, with retailers notching record seafood sales and the category as a whole seeing gains, even as the foodservice industry virtually collapsed.

That downturn is expected to change direction this year, with foodservice operators optimistic about 2021. Seafood company CEOs and advisors, speaking during the National Fisheries Instituteโ€™s Global Seafood Market Conferenceโ€™s economic outlook panel, also expressed optimism about the industryโ€™s recovery. While in the short-term the rebound may be slight, as trend experts have predicted, once relative normalcy returns demand could see a big boost.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NFI Chair, Seattle Fish CEO Derek Figueroa bullish on seafood industryโ€™s 2021 outlook

February 8, 2021 โ€” Despite the enormous challenges and tragedies that COVID-19 has inflicted upon the industry and the world, new National Fisheries Institute (NFI) Chair Derek Figueroa said the pandemic has been a catalyst for change for seafood.

Figueroa, the president and CEO of Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.-based Seattle Fish Co., told SeafoodSource he is looking forward to โ€œbringing diverse voices togetherโ€ in his new, one-year position at NFI.

Read the full story at Seafood Source