Trident to market pollock roe with Japanese company Takamasa in bid to help rebuild after tsunami

SEAFOODNEWS.COM  by John Sackton  July 31, 2014

Alaska's pollock fleets taps into squid bycatch reserves after filling TAC way ahead of schedule

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [KUCB] by Lauren Rosenthal - July 31, 2014

While salmon is still the main species that pollock fishermen are trying to avoid taking as bycatch this summer, there’s another creature that’s been causing problems in the Bering Sea.

Along with their pollock, fishermen have pulled up about 1,100 metric tons of slimy, pink squid this summer. That’s more than four times their catch limit, according to Krista Milani. She’s a biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Milani says there’s still some wiggle room before fishery managers get worried. A few hundred tons of squid are sitting in reserve, and they can be taken as bycatch...

Shortages have Gulf oyster suppliers heading to the East Coast to fill inventories

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Houma Today] by Kameryn Rome - July 31, 2014

Oysters in some local restaurants may not be from Louisiana because of historically low production this year.

Some oyster suppliers have even been buying oysters from other Gulf and East Coast states to keep up with demand.

For the first time in the 43 years, Motivatit Seafoods, the leading oyster harvesting and production company in Houma, is bringing in some of its oysters from Chesapeake Bay, said Greg Voisin, Motivatit’s marketing and sales vice president...

Alaska's Southeast Dungeness fishery having best season ever with prices near $3 lb (Fish Radio)

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Fish Radio with Laine Welch] July 31, 2014 

This is Fish Radio. I’m Laine Welch … Lots of fishing going on from one end of Alaska to the other. 

With a few exception, most of Alaska’s salmon fisheries are rather lackluster. Statewide the salmon catch has topped 87 million and more than 47 million of those fish are sockeye salmon.

Perhaps the biggest fish story this week is the Dungeness crab fishery in Southeast, which is seeing its best season ever. The total catch this year is pegged at nearly 6.5 million pounds for 150 crabbers who are getting about $3/pound, up 50 cents from last year...

Norway's king crab season starts this week

Shrimp prices to rise in South China following typhoon destruction in Zhanjiang

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [China Life]  translated by Amy Zhong July 31, 2014

Russia may set record for catch of pacific salmon this year

SEAFOODNEWS.COM by Eugene Gerden  July 31, 2014

Whole Foods to defend its position in organic food with national marketing campaign

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Associated Press] by Candice Choi - July 31, 2014

Whole Foods is getting ready to launch its first national marketing campaign and expand home delivery as it looks to fend off bigger players muscling into the organic and natural foods category.

The company, based in Austin, Texas, said the marketing campaign this fall will explain to customers what makes it different and why it's better than other supermarkets.

In addition, he said the company will partner with third parties to offer home delivery in 12 to 15 major markets, with plans for a wider rollout over time...
 

Yukon River chinook reach escapement goal to Canada; run exceeds forecast, management measures work

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Yukon News] by Myles Dolphin - July 31, 2014

This year’s Yukon River chinook salmon escapement goal has been met.

As of last week, the number of salmon counted by sonar near the border village of Eagle stood at roughly 49,000, which surpasses the minimum goal of 42,500 called for in the Pacific Salmon Treaty between Canada and the United States.

Under the treaty, Americans have to allow that number of chinook salmon to pass into Canadian waters...

China's porous food safety regs hinder fast food industry's expansion plans

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Associated Press] by Joe McDonald - July 31, 2014

Already China's biggest restaurant operator with 4,600 outlets, KFC is pursuing Chinese consumers so avidly it opens two more every day.

That dramatic growth comes with a big catch: KFC's quality control is struggling to keep up.

The Louisville, Kentucky-based chain is reeling after a Chinese supplier was accused of selling expired beef and chicken to it, McDonald's and possibly other restaurant chains. Just 18 months earlier, KFC's sales plunged in China after a supplier violated rules on drug use in chickens...

South Pacific's bigeye tuna stock is at dangerously low levels warn scientists

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Waikato Times] by Michael Field - July 31, 2014

A major South Pacific tuna fishery exploited by New Zealand commercial and recreational boats is on the verge of collapse, experts say.

South Pacific stocks of bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) are now just 20 per cent of what they would have been if left unfished.

Scientists with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) say that is an unacceptable risk...

Cape Cod fishermen say recovered seal population is gobbling up their catch

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [CBS News] by Elaine Quijano - July 31, 2014

It is summer on Cape Cod. The weather is warm, the beaches are crowded. And the seafood? They're fighting over it.

On a typical summer afternoon off the coast of Cape Cod, nearly 1,000 gray seals sunbathe on a sandbar.

A few years ago, this would have been unbelievable. By the 1960s, the seals were hunted close to extinction, the result of a $5 bounty by the state in an attempt to eliminate an animal many considered a pest to fishermen...

Market Basket's workers told they have until Monday to return to their positions without penalty

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The New Hampshire Union Leader] by Michael Cousineau - July 31, 2014

Market Basket's co-CEOs said workers can return "without fear of penalty" and the company also will begin advertising to hire new workers, according to a statement released Wednesday.

New CEOs Felicia Thornton and James Gooch said workers need to return to their jobs on Monday. A family feud at Market Basket has led to customer boycotts, picketing workers and limited food deliveries to stores, causing many shoppers to deviate from their normal weekly routines.

Some workers haven't returned to their jobs while others have joined picket lines outside stores during their off-hours...

New Magnuson draft would allow sustainability label for all well managed US Fisheries

SEAFOODNEWS.COM  by John Sackton  - July 30, 2014

Explosion at Omega Protein's Moss Point, MS plant kills one worker, injures three others

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Gulf Live] by April M. Havens -July 30, 2014

One man is dead and three other workers are injured after a morning explosion at Omega Protein in Moss Point, fire Chief Tommy Posey confirmed.

Jackson County Coroner Vicki Broadus identified 25-year-old Jerry Lee Taylor II as the man who was killed in the incident.

Broadus said Taylor's driver's license listed a Mobile address, but Taylor's Facebook profile page shows he is from Helena and currently lives in Big Point in east Jackson County...

Gloucester Explores Common Cultural Ties with Japan, as a Fishery Dependent Community

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Gloucester Times] by Sean Hagen - July 30, 2014

As lunches go, this one had a particularly international flavor, even if it was served at the offices of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, tucked away in a little corner of the Blackburn Industrial Park.

The hostess and chef was Angela Sanfilippo, the president of the Fishermen’s Wives Association, and the honored 
guest was Akifumi Hoshina, a reporter with the Japanese newspaper, Ishinomaki Kahoku.

Hoshina, accompanied by his Boston-based interpreter Yutaka Yatz, has spent much of the past week following Sanfilippo on her daily rounds throughout Gloucester for a story Hoshina is writing on Gloucester and its efforts to rebound from the fishing disaster that has gripped it at the beginning of the second decade of the new millennium...

Pacific Andes releases updated Sustainability Report

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [SCOM] July 30, 2014

Pacific Andes Group's 2012/13 Sustainability Report has received the highest possible rating from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

The report was given an A+ rating finding Pacific Andes fulfilled 139 indicators established by GRI under the headings of Economic, Environmental and Social Performance which include Labour Practices and Decent Work, Human Rights, Society and Product Responsibility. 

In line with this theme, the Report is structured around two core sections, namely a Global section and a Local section outlining each country’s operation. It highlights the Group’s developments in environmental sustainability, social compliance and product responsibility and outlines its sustainability commitments for 2014 / 2015...

Featured Stories

With over 41 million lbs landed, Pacific coldwater shrimp poised for a near record season  

Big mistake in fisheries fuel use article from yesterday   (1) 

Online sales with home delivery of lobster in China pushes up price in Boston  

Bad news for fisheries in Alaska as politics and lobbying trump science and stewardship   (3)

Russia may ban McDonald's from producing Filet O' Fish, other items claiming consumer deception

Japan, Korea expel each other's fishing boats from EEZ as bilateral fisheries talks come to deadlock

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [JAPAN REPORTS]  Tokyo July 31, 2014

Water filtration technology lets India's commercial shrimp farmers take operations inland

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Business Standard] by Vijay C Roy - July 31, 2014

Shrimp and prawn farming in Punjab and Haryana may get an impetus with the new technology developed by the Central Institute of Fisheries Education (CIFE), Mumbai.

Prawn farming is restricted to coastal areas but the new technology allows use of the saline wastelands in Punjab and Haryana, where productivity is poor, for the farming.

Started in 2008 by CIFE at its Rohtak centre (Haryana), the experimental trials on tiger shrimps or prawns were continued until 2012 to study the feasibility and financial viability of the technology...

With over 41 million lbs landed, Pacific coldwater shrimp poised for a near record season

SEAFOODNEWS.COM  by John Sackton July 30, 2014

Vietnam investigating Rich Beauty seafood company for exporting tainted capelin products to Japan

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Vietnam News] July 31, 2014

Vietnam’s police have launched an investigation into a Taiwan-invested company after Japanese authorities found two packages of its seafood products contaminated with rodenticide and human feces.

The Taiwanese company named Rich Beauty located in Vietnam’s northern province of Thai Binh affirmed that its seafood products have been checked through seven steps before being exported.

All procedures are under the workers’ surveillance and the names of the workers are recorded, said Nguyen Huu Rong, head of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development...

Clam bed closures in Maine see soft shell supplies drop, prices surge in Boston

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [WCVB] by Kevin P. O' Connor - July 31, 2014

No matter what kind of sausage you put in your clamboil -- chourico, kielbasa or bratwurst -- if you are from the SouthCoast, summer is not complete without the meal.

But clams are selling for $8.99 a quart in Fall River and $13 a quart in Tiverton, the Herald reported.

Higson is one of the principals in the family business, Higson Seafood, 917 S. Main St., that has been in operation since 1951. Higson said he has never seen clam prices this high...

Baltimore scientists pioneer N. America's first closed containment farmed bluefin project

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [NPR 90.9 wbru] by Dan Charles - July 31, 2014

In a windowless laboratory in downtown Baltimore, some tiny, translucent fish larvae are swimming about in glass-walled tanks.

They are infant bluefin tuna. Scientists in this laboratory are trying to grasp what they call the holy grail of aquaculture: raising this powerful fish, so prized by sushi lovers, entirely in captivity. But the effort is fraught with challenges.

When I visited, I couldn't see the larvae at first. They look incredibly fragile and helpless, just drifting in the tanks' water currents. But they're already gobbling up microscopic marine animals, which in turn are living on algae...

CP Hosting Supermarket Giants to Create Create Global Benchmark on Shrimp Feed, Anti-Slavery Measures

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Guardian] by Annie Kelly  July 30, 2014

 (c) 2014 Guardian News & Media Limited. All rights reserved

Big mistake in fisheries fuel use article from yesterday

SEAFOODNEWS.COM  by John Sackton - July 30, 2014

Cargill introduces analytic tool to help shrimp farmers fight EMS

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [SCOM] July 30, 2014

Cargill announced today that their animal nutrition business has launched a new EMS Risk Tool to determine the best farm management program to manage the risk of Early Mortality Syndrome (EMS) on shrimp farms. 

EMS, also known as Acute Hepatopancreatic Necrosis Disease (AHPND), is caused by certain strains of the bacteria vibrio and has led to devastating production losses in China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and most recently in Mexico.

You can't keep a Nagle out of the fish business, even in New York

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [New York Times]  by Florence Fabricant - July 30, 2014

Shanghai customs finds listeria in Pacific salmon from New Zealand

SEAFOODNEWS.COM  [CAPMA]  Translated by Amy Zhong  July 30, 2014

Paul Greenberg tells Boston Globe what he set out to explain about American seafood consumption

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Boston Globe] by Michael Floreak - July 30, 2014

In “American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood,” Paul Greenberg examines how a country with an enormous coastline and a majority of its population located within 10 miles of the ocean came to import 90 percent of its seafood, much of it raised on farms. “It’s a conspiracy of a few different things,” Greenberg says, noting the replacement of working waterfronts with private real estate, the damming of waterways, and the spiraling loss of fertile marshland among them.

He tells the story of how Americans stopped eating seafood from its own waters by looking at the consumption of oysters, shrimp, and salmon...