Top Story: Japan Trading houses investing more overseas to protect sourcing 

News Summary:

Given a recent history of being outbid for many seafood products due to strong seafood demand in countries like China and Brazil, major Japanese trading houses are expanding their buying up of overseas companies to guarantee sourcing. The phenomenon that happened in Alaska years ago is now occurring in Chile, as several companies attempt to put permanent roots there. At the same time, these companies are also expanding their direct sales channels in China and other overseas markets. 

WE are pleased to announce that Peggy Parker, who has had a long career in the Seafood industry in Alaska and the West Coast, will be our new Science and Sustainability editor, beginning Sept. 1st. Parker, who has intimate experience with North Pacific science based management, will focus on global issues relating to seafood sustainability and science based fisheries management. She is based in Washington state.

Consumer Reports has come out with a recommendation that pregnant women avoid all tuna - flying in the face of FDA directives that suggest pregnant women should eat more seafood. As the FDA has found, the warnings about tuna tend to depress mothers’ total seafood consumption, leading to a poorer health outcome for babies. NFI asks how the Consumers Union can ignore this larger public health issue, and actively scare consumers away from seafood. 

As we wrote two days ago (link), the controversy over mercury has devastated tuna consumption in the US, and is a factor in low seafood consumption overall. 

Baader has unveiled a new snow crab processing machine to a broad group of seafood packers in Newfoundland. The machine ran this summer at Allen’s Fisheries, and produces ‘pack ready’ crab sections, vastly reducing the labor needed to make top quality products. 

We are happy to report that Massachusetts is a state that respects its commercial fisheries, and supports the value of putting local fish on consumers plates. Through new rules, the state’s Marine Fisheries division has extended the commercial striped bass season for months, meaning that this local fish is on the menu all across Cape Cod and other parts of New England, while maintaining the necessary commercial catch limits. 

Finally, one of our competitors made a major mistake yesterday with a false breaking news story that Pacific Seafoods was purchasing American Seafoods. They retracted the story, and corrected their initial mis-identification of companies - following multiple denials. But for four hours, the reputation of American Seafoods was hit. To us this reflects badly on all Seafood media, and we hope our competitors will take pains to avoid these mistakes - which seem to be happening with more frequency.

John Sackton, Editor And Publisher , Lexington, Massachusetts 

Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441 

Email comments to jsackton@seafood.com

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