The 88th Annual Meeting of the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) is currently being held in Anchorage, Alaska. From January 24^th to the 27^th, the six members of the IPHC and 250 delegates will meet to discuss the status of Pacific Halibut. Having already met at the interim meeting on December 2nd, the Commission has distributed a brief summary of stock assessment information and staff recommendations that the public has been invited to review. Proposals for 2012 catch limit changes and requests for regulatory changes (season length, clearance in Area 4, logbook reporting measures, etc.) or management actions had to be submitted prior to the Annual Meeting and will be discussed during various sessions this week.

Changes to catch limit and regulatory or management actions will be especially important this year as concern about the decreased average size of the Pacific Halibut grows. Though the fishery, which is jointly managed by the U.S. and Canada, is doing well in terms of abundance, Pacific Halibut seem to be growing more slowly than in the past. Most fish are now less than 32 inches in length, too small for the commercial fishery and even too small for most anglers. Fishermen are required to discard any halibut that is less than 32 inches because this is the minimum length at which Halibut are considered to be sexually mature. Keeping fish under this size will prevent further generations from being produced. This amplifies the importance of regulating the number of adult fish caught. There has been talk of drastic harvest cuts.

With the slow growth rate of these fish causing a rise in discard amounts, there is an increased number of small Halibut in the Eastern Pacific. Though an abundance of fish is usually considered a good thing, these fish are having an influence on non-directed fisheries, like the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) trawl and groundfish hook and line fleet. Fishermen within these fisheries are typically targeting Pacific Cod, but are given a Halibut bycatch quota to account for the inevitable incidental catch. Once this Halibut bycatch limit has been met, the whole fishery is closed. Halibut bycatch has closed the GOA trawl fisheries every year from 2000 to 2011. Finding a respectable equilibrium between user groups in times of abundance and in times of downturn will be a challenge that the Commission is faced with this year at the Annual Meeting.

With so many stakeholders involved and jobs at stake, it will be interesting to see how catch limits and regulatory actions are adjusted this week in Anchorage. 

General State of Seafood

Over the past few years there has been a lot of media attention focused on seafood.  We’ve all heard the old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, so you’d think any media coverage would be a good thing. Since much of the news that we have seen has been negative or even downright scary, I’m not sure that adage is true. 

Why is this happening? Unfortunately, bad news is often times more compelling than good news.  Organizations and people who have agendas can also be responsible for the negative attention. Thankfully, most of the time the media have the best of intentions, but the cautionary or alarmist tenor of their stories distracts consumers from the many benefits of eating seafood.  The end result is a chilling effect on seafood consumption which ultimately endangers the health of the consumers that we’re all trying to protect.

Eating seafood has been proven to have a positive impact on a person’s health and well being – a fact the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreed with earlier this year.  Every five years, the United States Congress mandates a review of the dietary needs of Americans by the FDA.  The FDA’s most recent guidelines spoke specifically about the benefits of seafood in American diets and actually recommended doubling the weekly intake of seafood in its report to 8 ounces per week.  Obviously, there are risks with any food, but is seafood riskier than other proteins?  Not according to CDC statistics.

The media reports the news and communicates what’s been given to them.  Negative stories far outnumber positive ones, and the information in these articles seems to stick around longer than the good news.  How do we get enough good news out there to put seafood into the proper context? 

Fortunately, the FDA is putting some serious thought and science behind this topic which clarifies the issue.  For example, one of the most widely believed misconceptions is that seafood is very harmful to pregnant mothers. Yet the FDA’s last report highlights that seafood contains nutrients that are essential to brain development in pre-natal health and it has many more benefits than potential risks to pregnant mothers.  The FDA also went on to recommend an increase in seafood consumption for children because of its potential positive impact on a child’s health and well being. 

We can’t be passive.  We need to get better control of the message.  First, we need to rebut inaccuracies in reported stories.  Second, we need to better communicate the risk/reward ratio with seafood.   Avoiding seafood because of alarmist stories is overly cautious. Eating seafood is clearly beneficial and avoiding it diminishes the value of the consumers’ diet, which is the real long term risk. 

General State of Seafood

How to avoid becoming a “Seafood Has Been”
By Ruth Levy

I have realized after spending seven weeks oversees in the past three months that the US is moving to a ’seafood has been’ status.  In fact, if the data from the GAA conference in Malaysia and the Groundfish Forum in Auckland is to be believed, the USA by 2030 will comprise just 10% of the world’s middle class.  The East is rising and the economic ‘Center of Gravity’ continues to shift east.

With the meteoric rise of middle class in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) more money will be spent on luxury goods and seafood is a luxury food.  The numbers are mind boggling….3 billion middle class in the world by 2030; only twenty years away!  The new members to the middle class are used to spending a high proportion of their income on food.  This group will see their overall food spending percentage to income decrease but this spending will include more purchases of luxury food items.  More people will have the ability to choose what they want to eat for pleasure, not for necessity.  Food items that were out of reach will now be affordable and will be consumed locally versus being exported.  Anyone who imports seafood into the US sees this happening now.

While I was in China, export prices were rising due to a variety of factors, not the least of which was the growing domestic market.  The same was true in India, a country where the majority of people (1.2+ billion) are vegetarians. While there, we were told 4% of that population eats seafood which means 48 million people are seafood consumers.  Consequently, the domestic Indian fresh head on shrimp market is growing at an exponential rate and the Indian shrimp exporters have a new element to factor into their export pricing equation.

So where does this leave the US consumer?  We have expectations regarding our food cost and portion size that looking ahead, aren’t sustainable in this new BRIC era.  The past is becoming unrealistic when facing the future. This is true in many different areas not just seafood.  Americans are going to have to make some adjustments.  Especially with respect to seafood, there is going to be too much competition to have an expectation of cheap, large portion sizes.  Will US Seafood consumption continue to decline as the emerging nations’ consumption increases?

Seafood is a vital part of the American diet.  The health benefits far surpass the other protein categories.  While we might be a ‘has been’ when viewed through the lens of our existing food style, we still are in the fore front with respect to food innovation and creativity.   The US still sets world trends and most of the world still aspires to have what we have.  Americans need to be creative with how we use seafood…consider skin on fillets, smaller portion sizes, creative cuts and food pairings as options.  Value is no longer just about how many ounces for what cost…value is now about getting a healthy, diverse protein to the end user at a level that is affordable and satisfactory.  What is an acceptable quantity on the lunch/dinner plate is going to have to be adjusted downwards.   We are going to have to pay more for availability. 

This new value proposition is hitting Americans in all areas of our lifestyle and our supremacy at the top of the world heap is changing.  If we don’t adjust we literally won’t have, others will be there first.  We need to wake up and think ahead, not wait for things to go back to the way they were, those days are gone.  Seafood processors/importers need to tap into our ‘can do’ ability and give the market options so that seafood remains a dynamic protein category for the US consumer.

General State of Seafood

Frozen at Sea, FAS, is the fastest way to stop seafood from deteriorating.  Once the seafood is caught and on board the factory vessel, it gets processed and immediately frozen.  This can occur within minutes or hours of the fish or shellfish being caught.  Often times the product has never had a chance to go through rigor mortis.   When this product is thawed under refrigeration, it has all the characteristics of just caught seafood and is almost ‘fresher than fresh’.

There are many seafood species or products that are Frozen at Sea.  Some of the finest eating seafood is processed this way and its ‘freshness’ is truly captured.  Items such as South African Lobster Tails, Patagonian Toothfish (Chilean Seabass), Cape Capensis Fillets, & Sashimi Swordfish Loins are just a few of the many seafood items that have superb quality because they are FAS. These products have been handled quickly and properly from ocean to freezer and their ‘freshness’ exceeds the non-frozen, chilled versions of the same product.

When evaluating the best option for your seafood needs, remember that in many instances, FAS seafood offers the finest quality available.  Just because a product has never been frozen, doesn’t mean it is the best or ‘freshest’ product in the marketplace.

General State of Seafood

Seafood in the News

By Richard Stavis

Last month I stated that fishmongers should band together to promote seafood. Since then, seafood has been in the news consistently, but the news has been focused on crises rather than the positive benefits of eating seafood.  I’ve been called by local papers and radio stations to provide an expert opinion from the seafood industry on the impact of these various crises. First it was volcanic ash, then, the water main break in Boston, and finally, the attention settled on the Gulf oil spill. I am always happy to speak for the seafood industry in an effort to get the truth across.  This said I’m somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that these “crisis” stories are becoming bigger than they should be and that they might start to define seafood.  If all of the media attention is crisis related, will the public get the idea that seafood in general is in crisis?

I’m not naïve- I understand the appetite of the public for news about the disaster du jour.  I’ve been there scanning the internet trying to find out more about a situation, whether serious or trivial (I admit it- I followed the Jay/Conan debacle).  The media looks to meet the demand for content and it widens its net.  From some angles the situation can then seem larger than it is. Is that what I am doing?  Am I helping feed the flame?

I’ve done my best to provide the public with the relevant information they need. When talking about the volcanic ash, for example, I brought up the disruption in supply to the market of European Atlantic Salmon.  I also made it clear that while the price of Salmon was rising, the increase was not solely due to the ash, and buyers would still have ample supply to purchase from. When asked about the water quality problem, I shared the steps that Stavis took to ensure that all fish going out the door was safe.  When discussing the gulf oil spill, I highlighted the 2 seafood items that we source from the gulf, Oysters and Shrimp, but also confirmed that we would continue to have product to sell. I hope all of these comments were helpful to consumers and did not overemphasize the impact of these issues.

Maybe the best thing to do is to balance the scales.  More and more specie are being certified as sustainable.  Countries, processors, and individuals are making great strides every day improving the quality and the safety of the seafood that is getting to your table.  Seafood is saving lives every day by improving the health of its consumers.   Let’s focus on “good news” seafood stories.

General State of Seafood

Fishmongers: A Fractious Bunch
By Richard Stavis

Fishmongers are a secretive bunch, who primarily do not work well in groups.  Why is this the case?  It probably has to do with the sheer diversity of products, harvest methods, and regions of production, all of which limit consolidation in the industry and create small groups of marketers who are working at cross purposes. 

This isolated approach is the opposite of what we see with most major protein food groups, where the heavy hitter producers hang together.  For example, in the milk industry suppliers contributed hard earned money to pay for the famously successful “Got Milk?” campaign. While merchants might fight about whether Garelick Farms is better than Hood, they all work together and collectively reap the benefits.  Want a couple more examples?  Do any of you remember when James Garner said “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner”?  Maybe you’ve heard of “the incredible, edible egg” or been tempted to eat “the other white meat”?  These promotional campaigns are all great examples of companies putting aside their differences to promote their industry as a whole.

We had the opportunity to do the same to promote seafood, but we blew it.

The National Seafood Marketing Council was established on December 7, 1989 under the Fish and Seafood Promotion Act of 1986 (16 U.S.C. 4001 et seq.) to help the seafood industry promote the consumption of domestically harvested seafood. The Council was meant to act as an independently managed group representative of the seafood industry and funded by an industry wide assessment made at point of harvest or point of import.  The Federal Government even primed the program with money; some of it paid for national televisions ads.  The ads featured the national “Spokesfish”, a “Sturgeon General” who extolled the benefits of the wide variety of flavorful and healthy seafood.  So what happened?  The industry took the government money but voted against a mandatory assessment at the first receiver level when the money ran out.  The council was eventually disbanded.

What are the chances of getting a council together now?  Virtually nil.  We’re unlikely to see federal seed money to start this off again.  Additionally, the industry is so diverse that it’s doubtful that we could get enough of the major players together to make anything happen.  This is a real shame.  Our products are often under attack by well funded special interest groups that put out a stream of negative information about seafood, frequently focused on health and sustainability.  Is the information true?  Some of it is factually true, but it’s often given out of context or without a counterbalance.  For example, mercury is an issue in some seafood, but not all.  Consumers don’t understand how mercury affects their health.  As a result many adopt a “zero tolerance” approach and avoid species that contain mercury or even worse, all fish.  The benefits of eating seafood regularly outweigh the potential negative effects of the occasional consumption of seafood with mercury.  Similarly, the plethora of organizations promoting sustainability in seafood to the general public give a confusing mass of information that is often contradictory.  Some over generalize (looking at species instead of fisheries) and steer customers to a narrow band of a few species of seafood, suggesting that those are the only fish that may be eaten. Why do they do this?  In some instances product doesn’t meet their narrow definition of the word “sustainable” because of environmental effects rather than endangered fisheries.  In other instances the fishery just simply isn’t big enough to get on a top ten list.  The end result is still that customers are not comfortable eating sustainably harvested fish because of a lack of information.

What can we do?  Get the facts and communicate them as much as we can.  Offer our customers true, useful information.  Make responsible decisions about seafood by knowing enough about what we’re buying and selling to justify our actions.  Band together where possible, either along location, species sold, or with wider industry based organizations.  We are stronger together than apart!

General State of Seafood

International Boston Seafood Show Time

by Ruth Levy

The International Seafood Show starts next week and for those of us who work in Boston this is one of the most hectic weeks of the year.  Vendors, customers, booth & day to day business all compete for our time. You wish you had extra hours in the day to fit everything in and you hope to find the time to walk the show in order to satisfy your curiosity regarding what might be new and innovative.  There is always something new to see whether it be fish, packaging or marketing ideas.

This is not a stagnant industry.  Each year there are new things to see and learn and new connections to make.  Our industry is very relationship based and as you walk the aisles of the show you see friends & foes from many years.  The first show was held at the Park Plaza Castle and was smaller than the foyer of the current convention center.  I was just in the beginning of my seafood career then and met people that I still see and do business with today.  My learning curve might have changed over the years, but there are always new insights gleaned from meeting the people you do business with face to face.

It is not just the product that makes this business interesting, but also it is the people you do business with that make this industry an adventure.  I look forward to the yearly opportunity to reconnect and I wish all that are attending a good show and a grand adventure!

General State of Seafood

Who gets the fish?

by Ruth Levy

The New Year approaches and especially with the change of a decade it is a time for reflection, resolutions and of course predictions.  We have all experienced the changes that have occurred this past decade so I prefer to look forward to what might be ahead.  My crystal ball is subject to operational error, so I give myself the disclaimer of ‘Subject to Change’.

‘Subject to Change’ has certainly been the mantra of seafood prices and availability.  Looking ahead, I see this continuing and intensifying.  Seafood prices hit some historic lows this past year and have been correcting themselves since.  With a relatively weak dollar (although the current strengthening is very welcome!) and a hungry world population, there is major competition for the last wild hunted food group.  Farm raised seafood does help to ease some of this demand.  However, when a major farmed seafood category like Atlantic Salmon is at historic production lows for 2010, or Basa production is predicted to be lower, the question becomes:  Who is going to get the fish?  Is it just those that can pay? How does ’sustainability’, ‘green movement’ or ‘carbon footprint’ impact this?

We all have heard how India and China are the upcoming world powers.  Will they get the fish and if so, at whose expense?  Currently both countries are global sources of seafood. When will they start to consume most of what they produce?   Already, certain species remain for local consumption and are not entering the global marketplace.

For me, one of the big issues in the year or years ahead is ‘Who gets the fish’.  Overall seafood supply is not going to increase that dramatically.  No longer is it just ‘Who can afford the fish’ as there are more and more populations that are able to pay.  Is the trend to ‘local consumption’ a preview of what is ahead for seafood?  Our business is a global business.  But as with everything, a correction is due here as well.  My crystal ball isn’t clear enough to know when this ‘global correction’ will happen.  The dynamics for ‘getting the fish’ are not just going to be based solely upon price.  Other factors will enter in as we start to define in the next decade ‘Sustainability’, ‘Buy Local’, ‘Carbon Footprint’ etc.  So be ready, ‘Subject to Change’ remains a basic fundamental to sourcing and supplying seafood.

I wish everyone a Very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!

General State of Seafood

Sustainability

Bringing the sustainable issue home to the everyday consumer is something that we have yet to do.  I wonder what the result would be if we each went home and asked our spouse, children and friends what MSC meant; how many would come back with the correct answer?  If your results are anywhere near the results that I have seen over the past few days, it’s pretty dismal.  Out of 8 people I asked - only one had the correct answer.  This is from a group of individuals that you would think by sheer proximity to the issue would have known the answer through osmosis.  If this small group from the seafood industry does not know what MSC represents and tries to create in terms of sustainability -  how can we expect the consumer at large to know the answer? 

 The seafood industry needs to address the issue of sustainability with the consumer quickly and directly.  It needs to speak to the myriad of news articles that lead the American consumer to believe that, as an industry, we have disregarded our responsibilities as stewards of the environment.  MSC needs to make itself relevant to the end consumer.  Once the MSC reaches the end consumer, it will make itself more relevant to the industry as a whole and not just the supplier community. This means that more time and energy needs to be spent developing a dialogue with the end consumer.  This can be done through well place print ads highlighting the fisheries that are certified sustainable by MSC along with a targeted Public Relations campaign.  The MSC and seafood industry can raise consumer awareness and in the process, increase consumption of seafood.

General State of Seafood MSC, MSC Certified, quality, seafood, seafood distributors, seafood expert, seafood experts, stavis, sustainability

Global Aquaculture Alliance Conference

It has been a very informative and interesting week out here in Seattle at the 9^thannual Global Aquaculture Alliance Conference. The Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) is a group of members of the seafood industry from all different aspects of the business. There are Processors, Retailers, Foodservice Fortune 500 companies, Distributors and many scientists and industry professionals; all dedicated to the continuation of sound aquaculture practices for farm raised species all over the globe.

The largest topic at this meeting has been about trying to understand the “true” meaning of the word “sustainability.” The global marketplace today has many concerns with respect to aquaculture. The environmental aspects, the social aspects - workplace conditions, underage labor, the food safety issues of producing  healthy and wholesome foods and the traceability from the individual farms through to the processors and then to the distribution chains.  We learned that there are 4 major components of aquaculture which need to have standards and monitoring in order to be deemed a  sustainable system:  The Hatchery, the Individual Farms or Groupings of Farms, the Feed Mills and the Processors. Each group along the way must be committed to creating a sustainable way to bring the end product to the table while following the Best Practices set out by the GAA and others.

The conference focused on many different seafood products that are being farmed today. Salmon, Tilapia, Pangasius, Cod, Cobia, Trout, Catfish and Shrimp to name just a few.  As a whole, the group could vote on different questions put forward and automatically see the results with the new technology that the conference utilized (a smart board questionnaire). The group as a whole stated that we need a single certifying agency that all aquaculture can adhere to (presently there are many certifying agencies), and that the farmed products be wholesome and chemical-free. The group all agreed that the consumers are demanding that the seafood they eat be harvested in a way that does not hurt the surrounding environment and that the businesses involved have a strong sense of social responsibility. Interestingly enough, the group also agreed that while the consumers want these aspects in their farmed food the consumers were not willing to pay more for it!!!

As a buyer of many farmed species, I must say that it was a real pleasure to come together with my customers, vendors and notable scientific officials, to discuss the real time happenings of seafood aquaculture. There is an enormous amount of work still to be done; however there have been many successes as well. In two weeks I’ll be off to the real farms to take what I learned in “Aquaculture Class” this week.  I will be actually speaking  with the shrimp farmers in Thailand to see what is really happening at the farm level - stay tuned……..

General State of Seafood