News Summary: July 30, 2010


Today's Main Story: Consumers more concerned over food safety, price than sustainability, survey finds

A survey reported on by Laine Welch, conducted by the Perishables Group, finds that sustainability continues to be far down the list of concerns of seafood consumers. Instead, Food safety was the top concern of the 1000 respondents, followed by price; then origin and whether it was wild or farmed. Only after that was sustainability mentioned, with 5% saying they knew about the MSC. This shows why some organizations opposed to imports like the Catfish Farmers of America and the Southern Shrimp Alliance are focusing on fanning fears about seafood safety - because that is something that appears to resonate with seafood consumers.

Also, Joey Lowery, President of the Catfish Farmers of America, writes to say that yes, Congress did appropriate $10.3 million to cover the cost of USDA catfish inspections, and our report on a markup that said USDA would have to use only its existing budget was wrong.

A report from Japan suggests that in the hot sockeye market, more US buyers are sourcing sockeye from Russia, threatening to increase prices or reduce supplies of Russian sockeye to Japan. The only bright spot, from the Japanese point of view, is that increased Japanese sockeye landings will make up some of the shortfall.

The fate of the US economy continues to be at risk, based on new numbers that suggest the recession was deeper, and the recovery slower, than had been previously thought. Right now seafood prices and demand are acting like the sky is the limit; but it would be foolish to think that with a 30% to 40% run up in prices for some items that a slip back into a weak economy could not turn the current situation on its head.

The oil spill in China's Dalien port apparently is much worse than reported by China, says a U.S. expert. Meanwhile, the evaporation of oil from the surface of the Gulf and the fact that most oil remains in deep plumes underwater means that work is ending for many of the fishermen who hired on as oil skimmers for BP.

Have a good weekend. We have no video today -

John Sackton, Editor And Publisher , Lexington, Massachusetts
Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441
Email comments to jsackton@seafood.com

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