Bumble Bee Foods Settles Price-Fixing Lawsuit with Sysco

Bumble Bee Foods has settled the tuna price-fixing lawsuit that was brought to them by U.S. food distributor Sysco.

News that Sysco was suing Bumble Bee, as well as Chicken of the Sea and StarKist, broke in January 2018. Sysco filed the suit in Houston, and alleged that the three big tuna companies had secretly agreed to reduce the size of their tuna cans and raise prices as a way to increase profits. In addition, the lawsuit charged that the tuna companies had promised not to offer...

Southern Oregon Crab Under Evisceration Order Again

After waiting two months for the Dungeness crab season to open in southern Oregon, crab from the are must now be eviscerated before being sold due to elevated levels of domoic acid. The meat remains safe for consumption.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced late Thursday the establishment of a biotoxin management zone from Bandon (43° 07’) to the California-Oregon border (42° 00’), effective immediately. Traceability measures will be used to ensure whole crab are...

Spending Bill Ensures Better Catch Accounting for Gulf Anglers

WASHINGTON - Included in the spending bill passed by Congress yesterday, which averted another government shutdown, was an important boost to modernize data collection of recreational fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The bill included up to $10 million to implement electronic reporting on federally permitted charter-for-hire vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Electronic logbooks, or eLogBooks, are used by recreational for-hire vessels in Europe, Australia, and Canada where they were implemented last year. Alaska’s sport charter fleet can use either eLogBooks or paper logbooks ...

Mowi Aqua Feed Plant in Scotland Expected to Start Production in Q2

Mowi ASA's (formerly Marine Harvest) aqua feed plant in Skye, Scotland is nearing completion and is expected to start production in Q2, Kim Døsvig, the company's Head of Treasury and Investor Relations Officer told investors yesterday.

King Crab and Lobster Again Shine for Chinese New Year, 'The Most Important Dinner in China'

China’s largest-scale shopping carnival has come to an end with the ending of its lunar New Year holiday recently. Impressively, its residents spent more than 1 trillion yuan celebrating the holiday. One new feature of festival consumption is that imported commodities have become increasingly popular and affordable for frenzied Chinese consumers.

According to Alibaba, the country’s e-commerce giant, king crabs have become a hot choice for the festival feast. Their sales ballooned by 769% on its T-mall platform around...

Maryland Crab Industry Nervous About H-2B Visa Situation, Can’t Take Another Year With No Staffing

A meeting of Maryland’s crab industry processors and other stakeholders was held in Hooper’s Island last week, and the primary topic was concern over H-2B visas.

For years, Maryland crab picking houses relied on workers from Mexico who were highly trained, and would return each year to work at the same picking houses.  That was possible because under prior laws, returning H-2B visa workers did not count under caps on total visas, and were not subject to the annual visa lottery...

Tanner Crab Fishing Opens in Southeast Alaska

The season for tanner crab in Southeast Alaska opened last Tuesday with 62 vessels carrying almost 5,000 pots registered by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That amount of effort  coupled with the current estimated mature male biomass, will result in two additional days of season length in “core”, “non-core”, and “exploratory” areas. 

The season opened at 12:00 noon last Tuesday and will close in “core” fishing areas at 12:00 noon next Tuesday, February 19, 2019. “Core” fishing areas are listed in ADF&G’s announcement here. ...

Bruce Gabrys, Alaskan Fisherman, Financial Planner and Resource Advisor (1955-2019)

Bruce Gabrys, an Alaskan who excelled at so many enterprises he defied sector-defined labels, died January 30 at home in Eagle River, surrounded by his family. He was 63.

A 40-year Alaska fisherman, Gabrys fished first in Cook Inlet as skipper of a drift boat for salmon, then in the Gulf of Alaska, longlining for halibut in Area 3A. He also made a living as a certified public accountant and financial planner.

Gabrys participated at every level of Alaska’s state and federal fisheries management ...

SeaWeb’s Seafood Summit, Now Owned by Diversified, Will be Held in Thailand This Year

Diversified Communications announced that the 2019 SeaWeb Seafood Summit will be held in Bangkok, Thailand from June 10 to June 14, 2019.

The format will include several field trips and offsite work trips aimed at people who may have not visited fisheries centers in Thailand before.

SeaWeb says the conference will be bringing together attendees from all facets of the seafood sustainability movement for a week of collaborative learning, networking and problem solving. The Summit is produced by Diversified Communications in partnership with SeaWeb...

Thai Union, WWF Release First Sourcing Transparency: Wild Caught Fish and Shellfish Report 

Thai Union has partnered with WWF for years, and now the two have released the first “Sourcing Transparency: Wild Caught Fish and Shellfish Report.”

The report presents data from WWF’s assessment process, which reviews Thai Union’s European supply chain, including information on vessels, species, catch methods, catch areas and more. Thai Union uses the results to identify and develop fishery improvement projects (FIPs).

“WWF believes that for seafood companies to demonstrate their sourcing is truly sustainable they must work towards full transparency of supply chains and...

Chile Looks to Salmon Stability for a Profitable Business Model, Expects Moderate Growth for Years

In a recent interview with Aslak Berge of Salmon Business, Arturo Clement, former CEO of Multiexport and current president of SalmonChile, says that Chile is poised to grow at a moderate, profitable pace for the next five or six years.

This year, Chilean output should grow from 649,000 tons to 674,000 tons, a rate of 3.8%.  Clement sees no barriers  to continuing this growth rate for an extended period of time.

“We have the best performance ever,” he said, adding that...

Sustainability Rating Drops for Clearwater's Offshore Lobster Fishery

Clearwater Seafoods' offshore lobster fishery in Eastern Canada has lost its "recommended" rating from Ocean Wise, a seafood sustainability recommendation program of the Vancouver Aquarium.

It's more fallout from a 2018 conviction for what the Crown called a "gross violation" of a Canadian fisheries regulation by Halifax-based Clearwater.

In a separate action, the Marine Stewardship Council, another much larger eco-sustainability organization, has moved up its scheduled "full surveillance audit" of Clearwater's offshore lobster fishery by two months to April.

Clearwater asked for the early audit...

Salmon Price Drop May be Aggravated by Late Start of Lent this Year

With Valentine’s Day now upon us, there is usually anticipation in the farmed salmon market of an uptick in demand and activity. This year does not appear to be the case.

The farmed salmon market is adjusting lower and has been since the beginning of 2019, more dramatically the past 4 weeks.

This year there is an unusually long period between the end of the December Holidays and Lent. In 2019 Lent does not begin until March 6. That is 20 days after valentine’s day...

India Shrimp Rejections for Antibiotics Spike in January 2019

India shrimp rejections for January 2019 have spiked significantly, according to FDA import refusal data.

This past January the FDA refused 32 shrimp entry lines from India. Of those 32 refused entry lines, 26 were related to banned antibiotics. Looking back to January 2018 there were 14 shrimp refusals from India, however, none of the refused entry lines were due to banned antibiotics. In fact, in 2018 the FDA only refused 15 shrimp entry lines from India for antibiotics. This means that one month in 2019 had...

Happy Valentine’s Day! Name a Salmon After Your Ex Before It’s Fed to a Bear

Valentine’s Day is a day about love. But for some, it’s a painful reminder of a relationship that didn’t work out. Well, Wildlife Images Rehabilitation and Education Center in Oregon has a solution for those with a broken heart: name a salmon after your ex before it’s fed to a bear.

“Let our 1,000 pound bears tear into your ex… Did you fall hook, line and sinker for someone who broke your heart?” reads the promotion. “Kodi and Yak would love to help you get...

Jet.com partners with New York’s Fulton Fish Market

Jet.com’s new City Grocery experience now features a New York landmark: The Fulton Fish Market.

Walmart subsidiary Jet said Wednesday that it has begun offering customers fresh seafood through the famous Manhattan venue for daily purchase. Under the partnership, Jet shoppers can order sustainably sourced seafood such as fresh bronzini, wild Chilean sea bass and wild yellowfin tuna and have it shipped to them the same day. The products are all fresh and never frozen, the companies noted.

Initially, 24 Fulton Fish items will be sold via...

Fish Stick Uproar Upsets Russians, Leads to Misinformation Dump

Over the weekend, CNN ran a story on how US attempts to put tariffs on Russian pollock backfired, but the article confused the situation with USDA guidelines on school fish stick purchases with the broader issue of the US – China Trade war.

Russian media jumped on this, saying that Russians were completely innocent of the fact that Americans shot themselves in the foot.

As most readers know, the effort by Alaskan producers to get an exemption from tariffs for Alaska pollock processed in China and shipped back to...