Top Story: NOAA analyzing massive study mapping Bering Sea Canyon Corals 

News Summary:  NOAA has completed a massive project photographing and mapping Bering Sea Corals, and will be making a preliminary presentation at the upcoming North Pacific Mgt. Council. The Bering Sea Canyon campaign has been a center piece of Greenpeace’s organizing of retailers, with their rankings partly determined on how responsive they are on this issue. The NOAA scientists state that Greenpeace did not really have a scientific case to make - and this $2.5 million study shows just how responsive the existing management system is, independent of Greenpeace. We cover this in our video as well as our story today by Peggy Parker.

The seafood and restaurant industries in California dodged a major bullet when Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a California seafood labeling bill. The bill would have required sellers to use FDA common names, rather than the existing FDA market names, an unwieldy goal given there are 1850 species sold in California, including more than 30 types of shrimp. Under the guise of ‘consumer protection’ the primary advocates for this bill want to reduce seafood consumption. 

Thailand will become a shrimp importer this year, needing about 40,000 tons of imports just to stay even with last years production level. The head of the Thai Frozen Food Assoc. said that this year, domestic shrimp finished output will be around 200,000 tons, even lower than the 250,000 tons last year. Plants will have to import raw material in the 4th quarter to keep operating and fill orders. 

The Russian love affair with sushi is one of the casualties of the continued trade embargo affecting seafood. “The black swan event for our industry has been the confrontation with the West,” Rostislav Ordovsky-Tanaevsky Blanco, founder and chairman of OAO Rosinter, Russia’s largest restaurant holding company, said in an interview. “It’s hit costs on the foods that we had imported from Europe and the U.S., and the full effects have yet to be felt.” 

NOAA says the Atlantic Surf Clam resource is in good shape, and although they did not change the quota, they eliminated minimum size requirements in 2015. 

Begich is getting a lot of support from the seafood and fishing industry in Alaska in his Senate contest - due largely to his position as chair of the oceans subcommittee of Commerce, and his forthright opposition to the Pebble Mine. His opponent Dan Sullivan is seen as having other interests than fisheries and is not seen as someone who will get the industry’s job done in Washington. Begich has received the endorsement of the United Fishermen of Alaska. 

Finally, it looks like the entire Board of Darden is going to be ousted as Starboard and their investor group are in no mood to compromise with even a face-saving gesture. Our article follows the evolution to this point, with the Red Lobster sale over shareholder objections being the key decision. Starboard continues to bitterly criticize the sale, saying that net of taxes and real estate, the company only got $21 million, which Darden’s present board disputes.

John Sackton, Editor And Publisher , Lexington, Massachusetts 

Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441 

Email comments to jsackton@seafood.com

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