December 10, 2024 — Salmon industry advocacy group SalmonState is calling on the Alaska State Board of Fisheries to limit or eliminate the Prince William Sound pollock pelagic trawl fishery – the only such fishery managed by the state.
The state board will consider four separate proposals that would either add further restrictions on the state-managed pollock fishery or eliminate it entirely at its annual meeting in Cordova, Alaska, taking place 10 to 16 December.
July 8, 2024 — Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based pollock- and hake-fishing firm American Seafoods Group has paused its sale process.
In May 2023, Bregal Partners announced it would commence a sale process of its majority holding in the company.
February 5, 2024 — Catfish, lobster, haddock, pollock, and crab each have regional strongholds in the U.S. But a few species have broken through to national popularity, with shrimp, salmon, and cod leading the charge.
Shrimp was ranked the most popular species of seafood in every region of the U.S. for 2023. Salmon also made an appearance in the top five seafood species in all nine regions of the U.S., as identified by a Circana SupplyTrack survey done over 52 weeks ending June 2023. The data was presented at the Global Seafood Market Conference on 25 January 2024 in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
January 10, 2023 — U.S. suppliers are scrambling to figure out how the nuances of an expanded U.S. ban on Russian seafood might impact their trading in Alaska pollock.
On 22 December 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order expanding the U.S. ban on Russian seafood to include imports of Russia-originated seafood processed in third countries, including China. The expanded ban entered into immediate effect, with import contracts signed before that permitted to be carried out through 21 February 2024, according to the department.
December 6, 2023 — The Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) will receive more funding to continue its “Wild Alaska Pollock” campaign in 2024.
Since enlisting a new board of directors and expanding its annual budget to USD 4 million (EUR 3.4 million) in 2019, the organization has built awareness and demand for its marquee product through the use of the “Wild Alaska Pollock” tagline.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource
June 22, 2022 — Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both R-Alaska, have announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s approval of up to $52 million in Pacific and Alaskan groundfish purchases.
The USDA will buy cod, haddock, pollock, and flounder to supplement the federal government’s food-assistance programs as part of its Section 32 program.
Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act authorizes a percentage of customs receipts to be transferred to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to support the prices of surplus domestic commodities and to distribute those commodities through various USDA programs designed to feed hungry Americans.
June 16, 2022 — Western Alaska villagers have endured the worst chum salmon runs on record, several years of anemic Chinook salmon runs in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, harvest closures from the Bering Sea coast to Canada’s Yukon Territory and such dire conditions that they relied on emergency shipments of salmon from elsewhere in Alaska just to have food to eat.
Many of those suffering see one way to provide some quick relief: Large vessels trawling for pollock and other groundfish in the industrial-scale fisheries of the Bering Sea, they say, must stop intercepting so many salmon.
Advocates for tighter rules on those interceptions, known as bycatch, made their case over the past several days to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the organization that manages fish harvests in federal waters off Alaska.
‘Like fishing in the desert’
“The numbers are really low. There’s nothing out there. It’s like fishing in the desert,” Walter Morgan, of the Yup’ik village of Lower Kalskag, said in online testimony to the council, which met in Sitka.
Read the full story at the the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman
June 14, 2022 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is aiming to buy another significant amount of Alaska pollock, after already making several purchases earlier this year.
The USDA is asking suppliers to bid on 7.6 millions pounds of pollock for its National School Lunch Program and other federal food and nutrition assistance programs. The deadline for bids is 21 June, 2022.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource
March 30, 2022 — A Chinese seafood industry executive has taken issue with a report by a group of Norwegian and U.S. academics that suggested mislabeling is commonplace in the huge Chinese seafood processing industry.
Unibond Seafood International CEO David Jiang said the data and conclusions in the report, “China’s Seafood Imports – Not for Domestic Consumption?” are incorrect because they don’t take into account the percentage of the fish volume reduced in processing.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource
March 30, 2022 — The Vladivostok, Russia-based Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) will be able to keep its Marine Stewardship Council certification so long as it follows through on a plan to conduct more-sustainable fishing in three fishing zones in 2022.
The decision came as the association and the Russian government shared concerns that the MSC may be forced to suspend its presence in the country due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the international sanctions levied against Russia in response.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource