Stavis Seafoods to Open 40,000 Sq. Ft. Warehouse in Peabody, Mass to Store Frozen Inventories Stavis Seafoods is opening an additional 40,000 square foot warehouse facility just north of Boston in Peabody, Massachusetts, which will be the company's primary home for its frozen seafood products. The facility will open on March 6 and allows Stavis to store most of its frozen inventory under one roof, which the company says will improve order fulfillment and warehouse efficiency. “Stavis Peabody represents a significant upgrade for us and is part of a larger growth strategy," said Richard Stavis, CEO of Stavis Seafoods. “It provides us with more freezer space, more pick faces, more docks and better accessibility than we have ever had. These improvements will allow us to pick and stage orders quicker than ever before. It also gives customers an additional location near Boston to pick up fresh and frozen orders, alleviating congestion at our Fresh Center and improving service levels and cut off times across the board.” Shrimp production in China is expected to decline for the second straight year in 2017 from several factors according to Siam Canadian. It appears Chinese shrimp farmers have not been able to update their shrimp farming equipment to prevent the spread of disease. Farmers compounded the problem by buying poor quality shrimp seed and cheap feed, factors that both contributed to high mortality rates. In other news, pangasius prices in Vietnam are on an unexpected upswing because of higher demand from new markets. It was anticipated that pangasius prices would decline because of falling demand in US and EU markets, which are traditionally the top destinations for Vietnam's pangasius exports. However, China, South America and the Middle East have stepped up their pangasius purchases at the same time that farmers have cut production. Meanwhile, Seven proposals for Prince William Sound are among the 38 proposals on king and tanner crab up for discussion when the Alaska Board of Fisheries meets in Anchorage March 20-24. Proposal 268 from Cordova District Fishermen United would create a harvest strategy and amend regulations for tanner crab in Prince William Sound specifying conditions under which the commercial fishery may occur and establish a sport fishery and also establishing a sport fishery for tanner crab. CDFU’s proposal notes that it has been 27 years since the last tanner crab fishery in Prince William Sound, and that the CDFU board feels that adoption of a commercial harvest strategy for tanner crab should be formulated from the trawl survey data. Finally, The Maine Lobstering Union has voted to buy the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound for $4 million. The pound can store up to 180,000 pounds of lobsters and should allow the local lobstermen to start buying and selling their own lobsters.