Portland Fish Exchange Archives

MAINE: Portland Fish Exchange gets more financial aid; deadline nears for management proposals

August 17, 2022 — Transitioning into a much more prosperous period in July and beyond, fish exchange officials have expressed optimism about increased landings and buyers after what was a particularly slow period in May and June.

An upward trend is a good sign, especially on top of the potential for an outside entity to come in and help run the business, although for now, the exchange is still seeking assistance to handle lingering financial struggles.

The exchange requested a $240,000 bailout earlier this year and received $80,000 from the pier authority in June.

Authority members OK’d another $80,000 on Aug. 8 to help pay down the exchange’s line of credit, currently more than $160,000, used to keep the business afloat during the winter.

“Since there’s been revenue, we want to beat that (credit line) down as much as we can as fast as we can,” exchange President Rob Odlin, an ex-officio member of the pier authority, said at the meeting.

Read the full article at the Portland Phoenix

Maine Cod Fishery Posted Smallest Catch in History in 2020

April 5, 2021 — One of the oldest marine industries in the United States suffered the least productive year in its recorded history last year, in part because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Maine cod fishery stretches back centuries but has been in dire straits in recent years because of tough new management measures and a lack of fish.

The 2020 fishery brought 58,730 pounds of fish to the docks. That is more than 20,000 pounds less than 2017, which previously was the least productive year. The fishery routinely topped 10 million pounds per year in the 1980s and early ’90s.

Members of the industry said the pandemic played a role in last year’s low total because of such factors as the disruption to the broader seafood industry and the closure of restaurants.

“We had a pretty lean year,” said Jodie York, general manager of Portland Fish Exchange, a Maine auction house. “It really is in large part due to the pandemic.”

The fishery has also struggled in recent years because of cod population levels that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has described as “significantly below target levels.” The cod population off New England has suffered due to past years of overfishing and environmental change, marine regulators have said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

Struggling fishermen and hungry Mainers have found a way to help each other through the pandemic

November 19, 2020 — The first rays of yellow light slashed through the indigo gloom Monday morning while the city awoke and rubbed its eyes. All was still quiet up the hill in the business district, but down on the docks the day was already humming. By 6:30 a.m., a hardy, rubber-booted crew of workmen were on a smoke break after unloading their first boat of the day at the Fish Exchange. They still had two boats — and more than 10,000 pounds of ice-packed fish — to go.

It’s cold, hard, slimy work but they welcomed it. Business has been more than slow.

Under current pandemic pressures, the Portland Fish Exchange and the state’s groundfishing fleet are struggling to survive. Fish prices have bottomed out, forcing some boats to stay docked. At the same time, droves of newly hungry Mainers are facing coronavirus-induced economic hardships and asking their local food pantries for help. With uncaught fish at sea and famished people on land, the situation is a mismatched, ironic tragedy.

But the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has a plan to help.

Armed with an anonymous, $200,000 grant, it’s buying fish before it hits the auction and donating the catch to local schools and food banks. The move helps keep auction prices steady while also making hard-to-find, healthy protein available to folks who need it most.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Seafood industry ponders viability of Portland Fish Exchange

October 7, 2020 — The Portland Fish Pier Authority is embarking on a strategic planning process that could determine the future of its underused waterfront space.

Built to accommodate large trawling vessels and massive landings, the Portland Fish Exchange faces challenges from the decline of landings, fewer boats in the state’s groundfishing fleet, the coming retirement of its longtime manager, and the sudden impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Business at the exchange peaked in the early 1980s when more than 300 vessels landed nearly 80 million pounds of groundfish. By 1999 only 15 million pounds were landed by 160 boats. The manager, Bert Jongerden, said as of 2019 only about 40 vessels were selling their catches at the exchange.

Read the full story at the Portland Phoenix

MAINE: Portland Fish Exchange looks to shore up its future with aquaculture

September 3, 2020 — The Portland Fish Exchange is launching a new oyster sorting and bagging operation inside its cold, cavernous auction warehouse in hopes of growing the state’s aquaculture economy and diversifying a business plan that’s taken a beating since local ground fish landings collapsed.

On Wednesday, the Exchange received the first of what it hopes will be many oyster deliveries. Two employees measured, sorted, bagged and tagged five 100-count bags of Eastern oysters harvested by Running Tide, a two-year-old aquaculture company that operates a hatchery in Harpswell and grows oysters, clams and scallops at three coastal Maine locations.

“Ground fish landings have been going down, down, down for years,” said Bert Jongerden, the longtime general manager of the exchange. “The numbers told us we had to find something else. So we thought, let’s do for aquaculture what we’ve done for ground fishermen. Give them the shoreside support they need to focus on harvesting instead of chasing down sales.”

The pearly white shelled oysters, which measure from 2 ½ inches to 5 inches from hinge to outer shell fan, have rounded edges created from being tumbled, or stirred, to avoid being chipped when shucked, and deep pockets that hint at the plump meat inside. This first harvest is bound for The Shop, a raw bar on Washington Avenue, to be served up on Friday.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Northeast Groundfish Retail sales recovering, but prices stay down

August 5, 2020 — “Well, we’ve had an interesting first part of the fishing year,” says Bert Jongerden, general manager of the Portland Fish Exchange on Maine’s waterfront. “Prices have been very weak — I’m surprised by how much the lack of restaurant markets is impacting the pricing of groundfish.”

Generally, Jongerden notes, “a groundfish trawler averages around $2 a pound. But, right now, trawlers are getting around $1.25 to 1.30 a pound. It’s about 65 percent off this year, compared to last year.” Amid the continuing covid-19 closures, supermarket retail has been steadier, but it hasn’t made up for restaurant demand.

As New York City markets are beginning to open back up, “pollock, haddock and hake are moving along pretty well, but at reduced prices while flatfish like dabs, grey sole and monk tails are weak,” says Jongerden.

It’s been challenging to find markets for flatfish, which are typically popular in restaurants as full-plate fish. Jongerden says challenges for flatfish markets are compounded by the fact that processors along the northeast coast are having difficulty getting flatfish cut and processed.

“Finding cutters was challenging before covid-19 hit, but the pandemic has exacerbated things,” he says. “Processors have to be careful now, using screens and adjusting so workers aren’t close to one another. It all has a trickle-down effect.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

SEAFOOD PRICES REFLECT A COMPLEX SUPPLY CHAIN

June 25, 2020 — As restaurants and other foodservice operations began shutting down in March, the demand for seafood plummeted.

“The fishing industry is foodservice dependent, so once the demand decreased, the fishermen stopped going out in their boats,” says Barton Seaver, a Maine-based chef and lead educator for seafoodliteracy.com.

“About 75% of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is sold by restaurants,” confirms Ben Martens, executive director of Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, a nonprofit that supports sustainability and community-based fishermen.

Now that restaurants are reopening, it’s taking a while for the fresh supply to get back up to speed, leading to higher prices. Smaller fisheries and dayboat fleets that typically supply higher-end restaurants were told by wholesalers not to go out fishing during the pandemic. At the Portland Fish Exchange in Maine, prices were down by 34% as late as May, says Martens. Although fishermen were struggling economically, they were getting killed by low prices at the docks.

Read the full story at Restaurant Business

Seafood industry looks to retail for a lifeline as sales plummet

April 10, 2020 — Dive Brief:

As statewide mandates force many restaurants and foodservice operations to temporarily shut down, the seafood industry is severely hurting. Fishermen and dealers are working on looking for new markets to sell in and have asked the federal government for assistance.
Bert Jongerden, general manager of a Maine auction house Portland Fish Exchange, told the Associated Press that the market for higher-end products like scallops and lobster is “pretty much nonexistent.” The Exchange typically moves up to 60,000 pounds of fish per week but has plummeted to less than a third of that.
To get more consumers to eat seafood, a new group of 19 organizations called the The Seafood4Health Action Coalition launched a consumer-facing campaign called “Eat Seafood, America!” this week to push consumers to stay healthy by eating more seafood and therefore boosting the U.S. seafood economy, according to an email sent to Food Dive.

Dive Insight:

Despite the rise in shoppers stockpiling food across the U.S., the seafood industry is in turmoil. Distribution, processing and fishing has slowed as prices are dropping and customers are dwindling. With restaurants closed, where seafood usually retains high prices, many of the country’s fisheries have reported sales dropping as much as 95% and thousands of commercial fishers are at risk of bankruptcy, The Washington Post reported.

About 68% of the $102.2 billion that consumers paid for U.S. fishery products in 2017 was spent in foodservice. The lack in demand has sent prices free falling for a variety of products and has even caused some to stop fishing until the outbreak subsides. In March, the wholesale price for 1.25-pound lobsters was 33% lower than it was in 2018, according to Urner Barry data cited by the Associated Press.

Read the full story at Grocery Dive

Seafood Industry Struggling to Stay Afloat Amid Outbreak

April 6, 2020 — The seafood industry has been upended by the spread of the coronavirus, which has halted sales in restaurants and sent fishermen and dealers scrambling for new markets.

Seafood is a global industry that relies on a complex network of fishermen, processors, buyers and distributors, all of which have been affected by the virus. A lack of demand has sent prices tumbling and led some fishermen to tie up their boats until the outbreak subsides.

Members of the U.S. seafood industry are calling on the Trump administration and Congress to help them weather the uncertain time. But for now, the market for big-money items such as scallops and lobster is “pretty much nonexistent,” said Bert Jongerden, general manager of the Portland Fish Exchange, a Maine auction house.

The auction house usually moves up to 60,000 pounds (27,215 kilograms) of fish in a week but is down to less than a third of that, Jongerden said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

Pollock scarce — and expensive — as Northeast groundfish prices fluctuate

July 25, 2019 — The Northeast groundfish fishery kicked off May 1. The federal shutdown last winter meant some management changes, like Framework 58 which changes catch limits on several stocks, faced delays.

Groundfish prices seem to be fluctuating. Bert Jongerden, general manager of the Portland Fish Exchange, a wholesale auction in Maine says fleets are “mostly bringing in Gulf of Maine haddock, dabs, and white hake, it’s balanced among those.”

Gulf of Maine haddock appears steady, with average price for large around $2.78 per pound. Demand for dabs for restaurant markets is high, with $4.50-5.00 for large dabs.

Fleets are hauling high volumes of redfish, with low prices. Another low point is monkfish.

“Tails are very soft, sometimes less than $1 per pound on auction,” adds Jongerden. It is a pattern that has been seen a few years – likely a result of robust supply but cold European markets, which set the price.

“A lot of gillnetters are targeting monks to avoid cod, because there is a terrible cod problem. The fish are there,” said Jongerden. Average prices for cod were $3.24 to $3.81 per pound as of late June.

All eyes are on Atlantic pollock. “Gillnetters are just not seeing them, no large or mediums,” adds Jongerden. Pollock (aka Boston bluefish) is popular in NY markets.

Read the full story at National Fisherman