Monday, August 4, 2025
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- Aug 3
- 5 min read
Alaska
PWS salmon harvest tops 26M fish
Cordova Times by Margaret Bauman - August 1, 2025
Copper River commercial harvesters continued to harvest thousands of sockeye salmon in fishing periods stretching through late July, with the succulent reds weighing in on average at five pounds each – but the bulk of reds available in retail shops in the Anchorage area was coming from Bristol Bay.
Latest Trump order sets tariffs hitting top seafood trading partners and billions worth of seafood
Seafood Source by Chris Chase - August 1, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order on 31 July codifying a new swath of tariffs on dozens of countries.
NOAA Fisheries - August 1, 2025
AlaskaWe welcome back guest blogger, Ella Kelly, to Currents and Connections. Ella is an undergraduate student attending the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, Alaska. Ella is currently interning at Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s Auke Bay Laboratories. She is helping with the NOAA Fisheries juvenile Pacific cod habitat research survey in the Gulf of Alaska. The objective of this research is to increase our understanding of juvenile Pacific cod, their use of nearshore coastal areas, and their overwinter survival in the Gulf of Alaska. Read on to learn more about Ella’s journey into the field of marine science and her adventures aboard the Lady Sea.
Salmonfest 2025 prepares for its 14th year
The annual Salmonfest kicks off this weekend where people from all over Alaska celebrate all things salmon.
Alaska News Source by Casandra Mancl - August 1, 2025
NINILCHIK, Alaska (KTUU) - The annual Salmonfest kicks off this weekend where people from all over Alaska celebrate all things salmon.
The Winding Glass: $1 Billion Tariff Hit to Shrimp Industry Will Lead to Downturn in 12 Months
Seafood News by John Sackton, Founder - August 4, 2025
[The Winding Glass is the opinion and analysis column by John Sackton, Founder of SeafoodNews]The US has finalized, for now, tariff rates on the major shrimp-importing countries, and the industry is preparing for a period of significantly higher costs.In this column, we look back at other periods when shrimp prices rapidly rose 20% or more to predict what the longer-term impact will be on our industry and customers.Things don’t look good. We calculated tariff impacts by using full year 2024 values for the major types of shrimp imports, shell on, headless and peeled, including both raw and cooked shrimp. The percentage of peeled shrimp has been continually increasing, representing 61% of all imports in 2024 and 65% through May 2025. Raw peeled represented 49% and 53%, respectively.India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand all have tariff rates between 19% and 25%. Ecuador is at 15%. Using the 2024 import by country percentage, this means that raw peeled products will have a 20% average tariff, cooked shrimp will have an 18% average, and headless shell on on will have an effective rate of 15.04%, since Mexico and Argentina, for example, have zero tariffs.However, it is not easy to switch suppliers for the value-added products, because even though Ecuador has been ramping up its value-added production, there is not the investment nor capacity to make up for the volumes produced in Asia. And furthermore, who will invest when these tariff rates might change next month or next year?The value-added sector, the most important and growing segment of the shrimp market, will face the highest tariffs.Some of the price increases have already appeared in Urner Barry by Expana’s value-added shrimp price index, which is up 12.22% by the end of July. What has been the experience in other periods when shrimp prices rose 20% or more over a short time?
Source: Seafood Datasearch with Urner Barry by Expana and Customs DataThere are three periods in the past 12 years where we have seen similar price increases. This chart shows the performance of value-added shrimp prices and overall shrimp volume in the 12 months following a period of price increase. In all cases, prices come down significantly. However, in the recovery from EMS, volumes increased, and they also increased in the period of strong demand in 2016-2018, when the shrimp market in the US represented significant value and demand, and per capita consumption increased. In 2021-22, following the runup in prices during the pandemic due to the surge in seafood demand, both volume and prices fell. Our analysis shows that elasticity, or the reaction of consumers to these higher prices, has increased significantly in each period. The only period of inelastic demand was during EMS, when shortages prompted buyers to take any product they could get. But our subsequent high-price periods led to a weakening in demand in the following 12 months. This was most pronounced in the recent 2021-22 period. In fact, we are likely to see a decline in per capita shrimp consumption when the 2024 figures are released.The total value of shrimp imports in 2024 was $6.06 billion, down from $6.4 billion in 2023. The fact that imports have increased year over year for the first half of 2025 cannot be assumed to represent the full year, as much of the buying was pushed forward to avoid tariffs as much as possible. If the weighted average tariffs were applied to the total 2024 value of shrimp imports, the tax on importers would amount to $1.1 billion, or 18.4%.This increase in cost will drive up prices in ways that may be higher than simply the added tariff cost. Many producers in India and other high-tariff countries will face buyer pressure to accept lower prices to partially compensate for the tariffs. This will cause some of them to exit shrimp farming altogether or cut back their production drastically to lower their exposure to the US market. The tariffs are likely to cause a contraction in shrimp production in the most affected countries. We have seen that this type of contraction can drive up prices. The reason that things don’t look good is that the tariffs will push the shrimp industry into a negative spiral of lower volumes, higher prices, and increased customer resistance.The US economy so far has not felt the real impact of tariffs, and in many cases, the ability of producers and importers to continue sales in the face of tariff costs and uncertainty has shown the resilience of many businesses. But eventually, businesses run out of room to mitigate these costs and enter an environment where there are no good options. Each of the prior general market retreats has been due to importers overestimating the ability of their customers to buy shrimp. History shows we will see another contraction in volume, and the only question is how exposed individual importers and producers might be to the contraction. That will determine who will really bear the brunt of this tax.
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