Top Story: Extreme Seafoods has tough first season in Bristol Bay 

News Summary:

Extreme Seafoods, operating the old Baywatch plant in Naknek, had a very tough first year. According to reports from Dillingham, some fishermen have not been paid, and the plant had a very hard time lining up tenders- leading to some fish having to be dumped. Silver Bay also was another startup in the Bay this year, but unlike Extreme, the owners had plenty of salmon experience in the Southeast. Extreme was part of a group hoping to put together a realty-TV show about the Bay. 

Blue Star Foods has a patent on producing pasteurized crabmeat in a foil pouch, and retaining enough air to safeguard against botulism. They are suing Heron Point for patent infringement. Foil pouches have become commonplace in the tuna and salmon industry, but these are fully sterilized at canning temperatures; not at the lower pasteurized temperatures. 

Mike Ramsingh looks at how the US frozen tuna market has bottomed out this summer, after high priced inventories have cleared. The run up in prices in 2012 crushed demand, and left most sellers with excess inventory that has now worked out of the system. Prices are trending upward again for the first time since 2011. 

I don’t think many seafood people here realize the pace of expansion in the cold chain in China. In Dalian, the capacity will soon be 1 million tons of storage, the largest complex in the country. Chinese eat about 1 billion tons of perishable food each year and over 50% of that should be transported through the cold chain, but currently it can only handle 10%. This is driving huge investment in getting cold storage to even Tier 4 and 5 cities, and distribution of frozen seafood, along with its global market impacts, will follow. 

Tasmanian lobsters are seeing unusual high prices - approaching $100 per kg., for sale to China. “I’ve never seen prices this high sustained” before, says John Sansom of the Tasmanian Rock Lobster Fishermen’s Association. 

Finally, more than 30 Ecuadorian companies are on a fast track for approval to export to Russia. For US buyers, Ecuador primarily provides warm water shrimp - 60% of imports - and frozen mahi and tuna. It is these latter species that are likely to be sought in Russia, adding a new competitor for buyers.

John Sackton, Editor And Publisher , Lexington, Massachusetts 

Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441 

Email comments to jsackton@seafood.com

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