Top Story: MSC certification system imposes a $100,000 tax on Maine Lobster Industry 

News Summary:  The Maine lobster fishery, which already has MSC certification, is being assessed again. The reason for the do-over has nothing to do with sustainability, and everything to do with maintaining revenues for the Marine Stewardship Council’s seafood certifications. The major lobster companies - East Coast, Mazzetta, Cozy Harbor and others have found they need to put up money for an entirely new assessment because of rules put in place by the Marine Stewardship Council. This money will not contribute one penny to lobster research, new science, or understanding the stock. It is simply a tax for the benefit of the MSC, and the fact that the Maine lobster industry finds itself in this predicament is a perfect illustration of much that is wrong with the MSC system. 

In other news, the US whiting industry was having a banner year with the second highest quota ever, strong landings, and good markets, until last month when the Russian ban on imports hit. Whiting sales were growing rapidly in Russia, and the sudden shutdown of 15% to 20% of the market has had dire consequences, with building inventories and some pauses in buying. Peggy Parker explains the situation. 

Another major story we are covering is Chinese packers’ attempts to push up prices for red swimming crabmeat. This is meeting resistance as many US buyers have inventory, total imports of Chinese crabmeat are already well above last year, and end users are indicating they cannot take higher prices. Some think the Chinese are misreading the US market, and with current record prices the large spread between blue and red swimming crab may not give them the market leverage they think. 

Thailand has petitioned the US to remove shrimp from the products that are part of the reason Thailand was downgraded to Tier III in the State Department’s human trafficking report. Such changes are made, but generally take years and are not likely to be resolved quickly. 

Finally, another lawsuit in favor of keeping Drake’s Bay oyster company alive has failed. This time buyers, who say their businesses in California will suffer due to the forced closure of the states largest oyster producer attempted to get an injunction, and were denied.

John Sackton, Editor And Publisher , Lexington, Massachusetts 

Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441

Email comments to jsackton@seafood.com

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