Alaska Salmon Producers Decide to Rejoin MSC, All Bristol Bay Sockeye to be MSC Certified
In an announcement late Friday in Seattle, a group of major Alaskan Salmon Processors, including Ocean Beauty, Peter Pan, Trident, Icicle, Alaska General Seafoods, Leader Creek and North Pacific Seafoods, KwikPak Triad Fisheries and Yukon Gold, announced that they would be rejoining the MSC certification program for Alaska Salmon. This means that 100% of Bristol Bay Sockeye will be MSC certified this summer, when a run approximately 50% higher than the long term average is expected. The Salmon producers, who represent 70% to 80% of the Alaskan production, say that they continue to strongly support Alaska's RFM certification system, which also certifies Alaska salmon and has been accepted by major retailers. However, the fact that multiple certifications are now in place means that both RFM and the MSC programs can give buyers a choice. The opening up of multiple credible certifications has led to a new environment, where producers now feel comfortable offering a range of certification choices to their customers.
The N. Pacific Council has adopted a 25% reduction in the hard chinook bycatch cap by a 10-0 vote after ample testimony that showed the Pollock industry had improved their bycatch management. Under the approved motion, the cap of will be set at 45,000 chinook for low abundance years. According to John Sackton the “revised chinook bycatch rules for Pollock…appear to provide the flexibility the pollock fleet needs to fish responsibly, but which also potentially lowers the hard cap under which the industry may face a shutdown.”
Meanwhile, Diversified Communications will provide a shuttle service for attendees to next week's Global Seafood Expo as part of a response plan to a general strike set to take place in Belgium during the second day of the show on April 22. Busses will run on continuous loop all day with six drop-off and pick-up locations set up around the city. Getting around could be difficult with expectations that more private commuter traffic will clog up the roads during the strike.
Finally, retail seafood promotions were up 24 percent during this year’s Lenten season compared to the 2014 period. It appears that retailers may have taken advantage of better sales margins on shrimp, salmon and tilapia items with wholesale prices in each of those markets on the decline throughout 2014.
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