Saving Seafood

U.S. fisheries’ leader Oliver asserts ‘business-minded’ stance at Boston 2018

March 13, 2018 — BOSTON — The US’ top regulatory authority on fishing used his first appearance ever at a Seafood Expo North America (SENA) conference on Sunday to describe how he was reshaping the mission at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to create more of a pro-business environment.

Commercial fishermen largely applauded the Donald Trump administration’s selection of Chris Oliver to serve as NOAA’s assistant administrator of fisheries in June 2017. But Oliver, who was confirmed in his new role in July, has maintained a relatively low profile since, his office not responding to requests for interviews.

In November, he told Alaska fishermen at a public meeting that he supported regulatory flexibility. The month before he had demanded the retraction of an article suggesting US seafood exported to Japan includes a high number of illegal unreported and unregulated (IUU) fish.

On Sunday, in Boston, he made it clear that he was using his leadership role to both follow the administration’s charge to combat excessive regulation and also looking out for harvesters.

“I’m a firm believer in a science-based approach to fisheries,” Oliver said. “… For 40 years, the North Pacific [Management] Council has been using annual catch limits, and I firmly believe those are the cornerstone to sustainable management. But I also believe that there is room for flexibility and a greater role for common sense frankly in our approach to fisheries management. And I want to bring a more business-minded approach to that process.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

NOAA is pro-aquaculture, but won’t weigh in on salmon farm ban

March 13, 2018 — BOSTON — Don’t look for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to challenge the recent decision by Washington state to end salmon farming off its coast. The federal government’s hands are tied, said a senior NOAA official at the Seafood Expo North America, in Boston, Massachusetts, on Sunday afternoon.

“We do have separation of powers in the United States between the federal government and the state government,” said Michael Rubino, NOAA’s director of aquaculture, when asked. “And this was largely a state government matter.”

Washington state governor Jay Inslee is expected to soon sign House Bill 2957, a bill passed by the state’s Senate, 31-16, on March 2 that would allow the leases for offshore aquaculture facilities there to expire by 2025. The state’s House voted roughly two weeks earlier to support the bill.

Washington state’s dramatic action followed the much-publicized escape, in August, of more than 250,000 Atlantic salmon from a Cooke Aquaculture facility near Cypress Island.

When asked if NOAA might weigh in, Rubino simply responded that NOAA doesn’t have a say in the matter.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

A monkfish proves seafood show is about building relationships

March 13, 2018 — BOSTON — Hours before the doors opened for the massive Seafood Expo North America, even before city Fisheries Executive Director Al Cottone ventured onto the ever-scenic stretch of Route 1 southbound, potential calamity emerged.

For the fourth consecutive year, the city of Gloucester was announcing its presence with authority at the international show in the hope of building its brand as a seafood supplier to the world. And much of the day depended on the elegant allure of the colossally ugly monkfish.

Monkfish stew being doled out at the city’s booth. The VIP, invite-only lunchtime tasting in the glassed-in suite overlooking the expansive exhibition floor featuring monkfish arancini, bang-bang monkfish and monkfish tacos from Todd Snopkowski’s crew at SnapChef.

Only one problem:

The city planned to use a freshly caught monkfish as a centerpiece display at the swanky tasting. Cottone was to bring it with him. But, because the foul weather of the last fortnight had kept almost all of the city’s boats from fishing, there wasn’t fresh monkfish to be found.

“I went everywhere and asked everybody,” Cottone said. “Nobody’s been able to go out, so nobody’s got them.”

The abbey was fresh out of monks.

Fisheries Commission Chairman Mark Ring had an idea for a possible solution.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Cape fishermen push dogfish, skate at expo

March 23, 2017 — Chatham fishermen Charlie Dodge, Jamie Eldredge, and Greg Connors walked the crowded aisles of the Seafood Expo North America Monday, one of the largest seafood shows in the world, drawing more than 21,000 attendees and exhibitors over three days.

The men were there to meet wholesale fish buyers and distributors looking to market their catch: skates — a kite-shaped fish related to sharks — and dogfish, a small coastal shark.

Dogfish and skates may not be ready to join heavyweights like salmon and shrimp, but with help from the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, as well as federal and state grants to assist with marketing, they are slowly gaining a foothold in domestic markets.

“It would be way better if it stays within the country,” Dodge said of dogfish, which, like skates is largely exported to Europe and Asia, and fetch relatively low prices, with skates at 23 cents per pound on average in 2015 and dogfish fluctuating between 11 cents and 22 cents per pound. In 2015, cod, by comparison, averaged $1.90 per pound.

Not long ago Chatham was one of the top cod ports in the country, but that stock is considered to be at historically low levels and landings state-wide collapsed from 27.5 million pounds in 2001 to 2.9 million pounds in 2015. Both skates and dogfish are plentiful and considered sustainably managed by organizations like the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the Marine Stewardship Council and Seafood Watch. That message — a local, sustainable and affordable fish — has helped convince institutional clients like the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

Read the full story at Cape Cod 

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester’s presence at seafood expo leading to fish sales far afield

March 21, 2017 — The city of Gloucester announced its presence with authority Monday at the massive Seafood Expo North America by hosting an international reception that drew seafood executives from around the globe.

The Gloucester Fresh reception at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, hosted by Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken and featuring state Assistant Secretary for Domestic and International Business Development Nam Pham, continued the city’s marketing drumbeat on the sustainability and culinary benefits of the region’s fresh seafood.

“If you are looking for fresh seafood, the quality that comes off our boats is 100 percent,” Romeo Theken told seafood processors and buyers from Malaysia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Iceland, Ireland and other seafood producing and consuming countries.

City organizers said the city’s presence at the gigantic show this year has provided more than 100 business leads and 20 meetings between Gloucester seafood companies and international seafood executives.

The Seafood Expo is one of the largest seafood trade shows in the world, drawing thousands of industry executives to the three-day event to buy, sell and network.

This marked the third appearance by the city at the show and the second year that Gloucester has ramped up its game to spread the word internationally on the Gloucester Fresh brand and the bounty of seafood still being harvested from the waters off Cape Ann.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Cape fishermen push dogfish, skate at expo

March 21, 2017 — Chatham fishermen Charlie Dodge, Jamie Eldredge, and Greg Connors walked the crowded aisles of the Seafood Expo North America Monday, one of the largest seafood shows in the world, drawing more than 21,000 attendees and exhibitors over three days.

The men were there to meet wholesale fish buyers and distributors looking to market their catch: skates — a kite-shaped fish related to sharks — and dogfish, a small coastal shark.

Dogfish and skates may not be ready to join heavyweights like salmon and shrimp, but with help from the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, as well as federal and state grants to assist with marketing, they are slowly gaining a foothold in domestic markets.

“It would be way better if it stays within the country,” Dodge said of dogfish, which, like skates is largely exported to Europe and Asia, and fetch relatively low prices, with skates at 23 cents per pound on average in 2015 and dogfish fluctuating between 11 cents and 22 cents per pound. In 2015, cod, by comparison, averaged $1.90 per pound.

Not long ago Chatham was one of the top cod ports in the country, but that stock is considered to be at historically low levels and landings state-wide collapsed from 27.5 million pounds in 2001 to 2.9 million pounds in 2015. Both skates and dogfish are plentiful and considered sustainably managed by organizations like the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the Marine Stewardship Council and Seafood Watch. That message — a local, sustainable and affordable fish — has helped convince institutional clients like the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Chinese travel pros test Gloucester’s waters — and lobster

June 9, 2016 — The world, it seems, keeps coming to Gloucester. And eating pretty well when it’s here.

The last two years have seen the city’s international profile grow significantly through its participation in events such as the Seafood Expo North America in Boston and subsequent city-organized visits to America’s oldest seaport by seafood buyers from around the world.

In April, the city hosted a large delegation of Chinese seafood buyers and executives to lay the groundwork for potentially generating more seafood trade — particularly lobsters — between Gloucester and the most populous country on the planet.

Each of the events has usually involved a luncheon showcasing the bounty of seafood that local fishermen pull from the waters around Cape Ann and the Gulf of Maine.

On Wednesday, the city shifted gears a bit by welcoming a group of 10 travel and tour professionals from Sichuan Province in southwest China. The group is being hosted by the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism to explore bringing more Chinese tourists to Massachusetts — and, by extension, Gloucester.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Traceability in seafood chain about money, not just ethics

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 28, 2016) — A coalition of environmentalists and seafood industry professionals is campaigning to make the case that traceability in the seafood industry is about success in the marketplace as much as it’s about ethics.

Ocean conservation group Oceana, based in Washington, D.C., has assembled the contingent of fishermen, processors, wholesalers and others to make the case that customers will pay a premium for verifiable seafood. They seek to link customers with the backstory of the product, such as where the fish was caught, whether it was sustainably harvested and when it was brought ashore.

The group includes representatives from more than a dozen businesses, including Virginia oyster farmers, a Boston seafood distributor and the fishmonger for a D.C. restaurant group. It is making its case as federal regulators consider tightening seafood importation standards.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

LIVE FROM SENA: Plenty of Fish in the Sea

March 9, 2016 — In the immediate wake of the 2016 Seafood Expo North America, the overwhelming impression is of bounty. As always, there was a plethora of product to sample, with plenty of standout items. Traversing the show floor at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center this week, Progressive Grocer noted even more breaded/crusted offerings than in past years, with shrimp, crab, clams, calamari, oysters, catfish, cod, tilapia, grouper, haddock and rainbow trout all getting the crunchy treatment, some in the form of bite-sized chunks. Also observed: a continuing trend towards zesty spices, sauces and marinades, with Southwestern flavors – as evidenced by the fish tacos served up by Miramar, Fla.-based Regal Springs, which donated 5 pounds of tilapia for every taco sampled to hunger relief nonprofit SeaShare – and sriracha particularly prevalent.

At the National Fish & Seafood booth, Nancy Peterson, VP of marketing at the Gloucester, Mass.-based company, was particularly excited about the company’s newest product introduction under its Matlaw’s brand: the seven-SKU Big Bag Value line, which Peterson noted offers on-trend flavor, variety and affordable price in clear, super-sized bilingual (English and Spanish) packaging enabling customers to see just what they’re purchasing. Among the products in the convenient frozen line are Shrimp Jalapeño Mac & Cheese Bites, leveraging consumer interest in breaded, bite-sized, spicy items. National Fish & Seafood is considering adding a lobster option to the line, according to Peterson, who adds that the company gets many of its ideas for retail products from items developed for foodservice. “That’s worked very well for us,” she asserted.

Read the full story at Progressive Grocer

Cape group pushes dogfish as viable seafood option

March 9, 2016 — BOSTON — The Seafood Expo is the largest seafood show in North America covering over 516,000 square feet of exhibition space this week at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

For the second year in a row, members of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance spent three days talking dogfish with international and national buyers and sellers, and executive chefs at the show as part of an ongoing campaign to put the small shark on restaurant menus and on the dinner table as a sustainably caught, local whitefish.

“I think the market is gigantic and, if you talk to the fishermen in Chatham, they will tell you, you can’t drop a hook in the water without getting a dogfish. Between those two facts, (the market) will continue to build over time, but it’s already gaining a lot of traction,” said Michael Dimin, founder of Sea to Table, a company that markets artisanal fish directly to chefs across the country.

Processers successfully campaigned to get dogfish certified by the Marine Stewardship Council a few years back because the population was booming and the dogfish daily trip limit is kept low at 5,000 pounds. Chatham catches about 6 million pounds out of the state’s 9 million pounds in annual landings. The total landings of 16 million pounds fall far below the 50 million pounds scientists consider a sustainable catch.

Compared with other species, dogfish, a small coastal shark, are close to shore and easy to catch. Cod are now far offshore, as are haddock, and monkfish involves a three-day trip, hundreds of miles roundtrip in relatively small boats.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times