Today's Main Story:Trident Buys Riepe Seafood 
Traders Value-Added Plant, Pickenpack Sales Unit
Trident Seafoods acquired of one of the value added seafood plants in Germany that has been the subject of a sales process following the bankruptcy of Pickenpack. Trident is purchasing the plant in Riepe, Germany, which focuses on producing value-added fish products for retail. It is owned by The Seafood Traders (TST), and Trident will be incorporating the employees of TST at the plant into the Trident family. The purchase also includes Pickenpack Vertriebs (PPV) the sales and distribution arm of Pickenpack. "The company we acquired today has long been a major user and marketer of single-frozen wild Alaska Pollock, and this is a logical fit for us," said Joe Bundrant, CEO of Trident. "Trident can now offer European customers the assurance of full control of our product supply chain at a time when transparency is becoming increasingly important to consumers."
In Canada, officials and residents from the Newfoundland town of Bay de Verde are assessing how to move forward from the major economic blow dealt to the region's economy after a massive fire destroyed the Quinlan Bros. crab and shrimp processing facility. The plant, which employed about 700 workers during the peak of the season, was an economic engine for Bay de Verde and many surrounding towns in the province. Town and provincial representatives, including Newfoundland's Premier and its Fishery Minister, are pledging support to help the displaced workers find jobs. An official statement from Quinlan Bros. has not yet been released.
The Pacific Fishery Council voted this past Sunday to extend a ban on commercial sardine fishing in West Coast waters for the second straight year. The fishery's stocks are down about 90 percent since 2007 from natural ocean cycles coupled with especially warm waters from El Nino.
In other news Urner Barry quotations for hardshell lobsters are up sharply in the last two weeks. Mid-April is generally a high point for this market as new season production has hardly started while the number of lobsters held in pounds reaches a seasonal low. These prices generally have little bearing on live lobster market behavior in June and July.
Finally, Ocean Choice International filed a lawsuit against its minority shareholder Landvis. OCI's suit accuses Landvis, which is a subsidiary of Icelandic whitefish catcher and processor Visir, of conspiring to squash a refinancing deal in order to force a sale of OCI to Clearwater Seafoods. One major shareholder with Clearwater denied the allegations of a conspiracy.
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