Alaska
Crab fishermen negotiate new agreement for 2025 Tanner season
KMXT by Brian Venua - January 15, 2025
The Kodiak Crab Alliance Cooperative, which represents the local fleet, will deliver between 70 and 80 percent of the total harvest to one processor that offered the best price. Alaska Pacific Seafoods will pay $5.75 per pound for the lion’s share of Tanner crabs.
Commercial fishing boats depart for AK
National Fisherman - January 16, 2025
A number of the larger commercial fishing boats that call Newport’s Yaquina Bay their home headed out last week for the annual trek to Alaska’s Bering Sea.
With Maersk Leaving AK, Seafood Cargo Has Few Shipping Options as Groundfish Season Begins
SeafoodNews.com by Peggy Parker - January 16, 2025
The Bering Sea pollock fishery starts next Monday, and they will have one last Maersk ship loading product in Dutch Harbor before heading south from Alaska for the last time. The shipping giant announced on December 19 that it was withdrawing its trans-Pacific shipments from Alaska due to an “ongoing effort to strengthen our product offerings and maintain reliability in the network.” The Cape Sorel, a Denmark-flagged container ship, is slated for a final voyage out of Dutch Harbor Feb. 11.Alaska Public Media reporters Davis Hovey and Andy Lusk have been covering the impacts of that decision in Dutch Harbor and Kodiak. Kodiak’s Harbormaster and Port Director Dave Johnson emailed Hovey, “We will be losing shipping capacity during peak processing season(s). I’m hopeful our local providers will have the capacity to absorb the additional cargo needs.”More product will go out on the few carriers remaining in Kodiak, like Alaska Marine Lines (also known as Lynden), SPAN and Matson.Matson’s community and government affairs manager, Dylan Faber, told Alaska Media that the company is “actively doing that, we’re looking at it, we’re evaluating where those opportunities are. And (we're) looking to areas where we’re able to fill in and support the industry with additional capacity.”Pacific Seafood, a long-time processor in Kodiak who recently significantly expanded its footprint by purchasing Trident Seafood’s processing facilities there, told Alaska Media that, due to the lack of choices, shipping costs could go up, and limits on the volumes shipped could be set.But Matson, a leader in trans-Pacific shipping, based in Honolulu, has twice weekly deliveries into Kodiak. The company offers China and southeast Asia routes through their Asia Express service.However, The final Maersk vessel to make port calls in the Gulf of Alaska is scheduled to depart Tacoma, Washiington on Feb. 4 and arrive at Dutch Harbor about a week later, with no scheduled stop in Kodiak.
Labeling and Marketing
US seafood trade group asks Trump to withdraw FDA food labeling proposal
The proposal is open to public comment through May.
Intrafish by Rachel Sapin - January 15, 2025
The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) is asking the incoming Trump administration to withdraw a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposal to change how packaged food is sold in the United States.
Russian Barents Sea King Crab Catch Hits Record High in 2024
SeafoodNews.com by Tom Asakawa - January 17, 2025
The 2024 king crab catch in the Barents Sea, northwest of Russia, was 12,363 tons, up 16% from the previous year, setting a new record. December saw a particularly dramatic increase of 3,714 tons, 5.9 times the amount from the same month last year. A Japanese trading company responded, "Maybe they saved their quota for December 2024, when the crabs are full. It's also possible that the large reduction in the quota for the largest producer in 2025 had an impact."Minato Shimbun conducted an analysis and interview based on fishing data from the Russian media outlet Fishnet. In 2024, the total allowable catch (TAC) for king crab was 12,690 tons, and the quota utilization rate rose to 97%, up 13 points from the previous year.The Northwestern Fishing Consortium (SZRK) 's (the largest producer) 2025 quota was 3,741 tons, down 62% from 2024. The quota reduction was decided on December 9, 2012, so SZRK and others made a last-minute attempt to fill it in December.As of November 30, the catch volume was 10,025 tons in 2023 and 8,649 tons in 2024. Until November, it was trending significantly lower than the previous year.However, no successful bidder was selected in the second round of auctions for king crab investment quota held twice by the Russian Federal Fisheries Agency in November 2024, leaving a total of 5,985 tons of quota secured for the second round unallocated. These quotas had been allocated to commercial fishing quotas until 2024. SZRK, which held a commercial fishing quota of approximately 6,200 tons for its 12 subsidiaries, will lose all of its commercial fishing quotas from 2025 onwards.The number of SZRK fishing vessels operating weekly was 7-9 in November 2024 but increased to 9-11 in December. In December 2023, the number was only 2-4, indicating that December 2024 was busy. Meanwhile, the Antey Group had 3-4 vessels in November-December 2023 and November-December 2024.Even this year, the pace of king crab catches outpaced last year. The catch volume from the 1st to the 12th of this month was 252 tons, up 85% from last year. The number of SZRK fishing vessels was 5, the Antey Group 4, and 1 for others.While the king crab catch broke the most significant record in 2024, the catch volume of Opilio snow crab from the same ocean in 2024 decreased by 4% from the previous year to 11,719 tons. The total volume caught from the 1st to the 12th of this month was 95 tons, down 47% from last year.
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