Today's Main Story FDA may lift import alerts on imported Chinese seafood
Mike Taylor, the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said his agency is likely to lift existing import alerts on Chinese seafood. Taylor said the FDA would rely more on China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) to ensure imported seafood from China meets US trade regulations. Taylor said while the move does not mean the FDA will fully entrust China to inspect US-bound seafood it is the result of years of collaborating with Chinese authorities to improve the flow of trade. “This effort is aimed at enabling FDA to consider AQSIQ's oversight in making entry decisions for food shipments from China," Taylor said.
California’s Dungeness crab season is in full swing with the catch so plentiful fishermen are reporting a bottleneck of trying to unload their hauls. At San Francisco’s Pier 45 an estimated 400 boats have been steadily delivering their Dungeness hauls. The crabs have been reported to be 2.5 pounds or larger with fishermen getting $3 a pound at the dock.
Favorable fishing is also being reported in Canada’s Bay of Fundy lobster fishing area 35. Fishermen have credited good fishing conditions among a few reasons for the strong start to the Nova Scotia fishery.
The shrimp catch of the Gulf of Mexico last month was the second highest of the year and the best for the month of October in over a decade. Fishermen pulled in over 18 million pounds of shrimp. The landings helped further offset losses from the start of the season and brought the fishery’s total catch within 4 million pounds of last year’s total at this time.
Finally, we are sad to report the passing of Harrison J. “Harry” Pierce at the age of 99. Pierce was the co-founder of seafood company Harrison Pierce & Co., Inc in New York, a company which pioneered shrimp and lobster tail importing under Pierce's leadership.
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