Thursday, December 10, 2020

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SeaShare donations are in demand at nations food banks and throughout AK:SeaShare’s seafood partners are working harder than ever to keep markets supplied, shelves filled, and families fed. Despite all the challenges, these same partners — fishermen, processors, distributors, and others — have donated over 7 million seafood servings to food banks across the country so far this year. Our collective response to the unprecedented need has been incredible. Together we are supplying the best protein to families who can really use a good meal.

Please consider donations to SeaShare as you finalize your end-of-year donation plans. Just $1 helps provide 8 servings of seafood to hungry neighbors nationwide. We at PSPA and SeaShare hope you have a safe and happy holiday season!

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Alaska North Pacific council votes to close Cook Inlet federal waters to salmon Alaska Journal of Commerce by Elizabeth Earl - December 9, 2020 Commercial fishing in Upper Cook Inlet is facing a dismal future after the North Pacific Fishery Management Council moved to close a major swath of the central inlet this week. https://www.alaskajournal.com/2020-12-09/north-pacific-council-votes-close-cook-inlet-federal-waters-salmon?fbclid=IwAR0TzD1oKnjIue6ISy-wVx8c0zJjQ7ELtso6pQH6ip6UEGq0Pmt4Phc3WOM Alaska pollock industry asks US Senate for military back-up after warplanes buzz American Seafoods, Starbound vessels 'We need to ensure that the events of August 26 never happen again,' executive testifies. Intrafish by Rachel Sapin - December 8, 2020 Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-sea Processors Association, testified Tuesday at a US Senate subcommittee hearing that US fishing vessels have been shaken by a spate of incidents involving Russian military vessels in the US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that significantly disrupted operations the Bering Sea in August and September. https://www.intrafish.com/fisheries/alaska-pollock-industry-asks-us-senate-for-military-back-up-after-warplanes-buzz-american-seafoods-starbound-vessels/2-1-927021 Federal Register Fisheries Off West Coast States; Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery; Trawl Rationalization Program; 2021 Cost Recovery Fee Notice A Notice by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on 12/10/2020 This action provides participants in the Pacific Coast Groundfish Trawl Rationalization Program with the 2021 cost recovery fee percentages and the average mothership (MS) price per pound to be used in the catcher/processor (C/P) coop program to calculate the fee amount for the upcoming calendar year. For the 2021 calendar year, NMFS announces the following fee percentages by sector specific program: 2.5 percent for the Shorebased Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) Program; 1.3 percent for the MS Co-op Program; and 0.2 percent for the C/P Co-op Program. For 2021, the MS pricing to be used as a proxy by the C/P Co-op Program is $0.09/lb for Pacific whiting. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/12/10/2020-27101/fisheries-off-west-coast-states-pacific-coast-groundfish-fishery-trawl-rationalization-program-2021 FYI’s Wild Alaskan Company Creates a Better Way to Sell Seafood Seafood News by Laine Welch - December 8, 2020 This is Alaska Fish Radio. I’m Laine Welch – A tech-savvy Homer company creates a better way to sell seafood. More on Wild Alaskan’s mission after this - The Alaska Marine Safety Education Association provides Coast Guard accepted Drill Conductor and other training for fishermen across Alaska. Learn more at amsea.org Did you know that eating wild and sustainable Alaska seafood can boost your immune system? Learn more about Alaska seafood’s many proven nutritional benefits at www.wildalaskaseafood.com. Many Alaska fishermen or groups who are marketing boxes of seafood directly can boast several hundred monthly subscribers. The Wild Alaskan Company based in Homer has notched more than 140,000 seafood lovers nationally since 2018 and since Covid hit, it’s adding up to 200 customers every day. Founder Arron Kallenberg calls it a “three generation overnight success” referring back to 1926 when his grandfather moved from New Jersey to fish Bristol Bay. “My dad grew up fishing with my grandfather, I grew up fishing with my father, but that being said, I was the nerdy kid that took his laptop out to sea in Bristol Bay.” Kallenberg went on to work in the internet field for nearly two decades. A few years ago he opted to walk away and create a tech-enabled marketing and logistics company to sell Alaska seafood. It now puts 40 people to work. “We have the ability through social media and digital based, data driven advertising to attract members to the membership service. And we have an incredible amount of proprietary software that manages a very complex, nationwide frozen fulfillment network that allows us to ship fish across the country at very reasonable rates. So it was those two aspects of the business that did give the company quite a bit of early success. And then, of course, recently we've sort of reached critical mass.” Wild Alaskan Company sources seafood from across the state from large and small providers, and the mix of frozen portions in three boxed options is dictated by supply. The seafood is sent to what will soon be seven fulfillment centers across the U.S. The company’s software manages the inventory and orders in a way that minimizes both cost and shipping distances . “Our software has some pretty sophisticated technology that will curate a box of fish for a member in one part of the country based on the availability of certain species inside the supply chain. There's levers and checks and balances that the procurement team can put in place to ensure that all of our members receive a diverse combination of fish. But the flexibility that the software provides us allows us to really decentralize this supply driven model in different regions of the United States. That's something that's pretty unique from an e-commerce perspective. Typically, e-commerce companies will have to maintain the same level of inventory across one or two facilities. Reducing the carbon footprint from shipping is a goal of what Kallenberg calls his “mission based company.” The U.S. has unknowingly downgraded its seafood supply, he says, “by exporting the best and importing the worst.” He hopes to help change that pattern. “Our mission is to accelerate humanity's transition to sustainable food systems. And I believe that Alaska can set an example globally. I think that in order to do that, Wild Alaskan has to become a big business so that we can shift the consumption habits away from these unsustainable options into America's own backyard. The carbon footprint implications of fish going round trip to another country, or farmed salmon coming in from another country are ridiculous.” Find links at www.alaskafishradio.com and on Facebook and Twitter. Fish Radio is also brought to you by OBI Seafoods -- an Alaska corporation proudly supporting Alaska’s coastal communities and the Alaskans who depend on fishing for their livelihoods and culture. In Kodiak, I’m Laine Welch. www.oceanbeauty.com https://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/1186914/Wild-Alaskan-Company-Creates-a-Better-Way-to-Sell-Seafood Opinion The Winding Glass: Every Week of Delay on Federal Relief Adds More Damage to our Industry SeafoodNews.com by John Sackton - December 9, 2020 [The Winding Glass is a commentary and opinion column by John Sackton, Founder of SeafoodNews] It is time to call a spade a spade. The Republican Senate majority’s blocking of any national coronavirus relief bill is going to do long term damage to our industry. Every week of delay now means a weaker and less robust recovery after the pandemic. This week, the National Restaurant Association said that 110,000 restaurants, 17% of the total in the U.S., have closed permanently or long term due to the pandemic, something totally outside of their control. In the past 90 days, 10,000 restaurants have closed, including independent, chain, and franchise establishments. These restaurants had been in business on average 16 years, and 16% of the closed operations had been in business for 30 years or more. Operators expect the next three months to be even worse. What this means is that after the pandemic recedes through a vaccination program, the recovery in our industry will be anemic and weak. Many seafood companies saw better than expected sales over the summer, especially as retail seafood sales surged. This coincided with the massive relief program that both Republicans and Democrats passed in April. It provided a lifeline to many companies, and income support for those laid off due to closures. The results are stark. The chart below from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis shows how personal income surged with the original stimulus program, and since then it has been declining.

Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis

Want to know why retail seafood grew to be so popular? This graph shows that it was because people staying at home had money to spend.

Fast forward to December.

New shutdown orders are coming to states almost every day. California has largely shut down dining again. New York City may do the same.

This chart, from Open Table, shows how the optimism over restaurant recovery over the summer has now reversed, and in Europe (Germany on this chart) a total shutdown is now in place again.

Open Table Date: Daily Seated Diners

When you are going through a seismic event, whether an earthquake or huge storm or battle, it is hard to know what the landscape will be when you emerge to get a clear view.

This is what the pandemic has been like for the seafood industry. Overall the industry has survived in better shape than many expected. But our markets are not monolithic. On a more granular level, there is a lot of damage.

How this will be healed, the financial ramifications, and what changes to our industry may become permanent all are things we do not know at the present. But we do know that every day of Congressional blockage of relief will make things worse for us when we do recover.

After the financial crash of 2008, there was a quick partial recovery in foodservice. But then things stalled, and it took three years before foodservice sales returned to where they had been prior to the crash.

Can we wait three years? That will depend on whether there is federal relief in this national emergency.

Source: National Restaurant Association As the end of the pandemic comes into view next year, we have yet to discover what damage may be permanent. When you drill down in any particular market, you find a lot of specific areas that have been simply wiped out by the changes wrought by the pandemic. Cruise lines, business travel, and oyster farming are three specific examples. Salmon is the number one seafood item sold to cruise ships, and in normal times they account for millions of pounds of orders, primarily frozen fillets. Frozen D-trim Chilean fillets are at their lowest recorded price in Miami, down 33% from their value in April of this year. European frozen portions are also trading at their lowest value in several years. This is a consequence not simply of the widespread 25% drop in foodservice demand, but the shutdown of cruise line buying. Fresh salmon fillets and whole fish, meanwhile, are low priced, but not out of their historical trading ranges, and with the expected cutbacks in production by the major salmon produces in 2021, there is every reason to think the salmon market will match supply and demand at profitable pricing. The reason for the difference is the versatility of fresh salmon that can expand retail sales to partially correct for lower foodservice sales. And foodservice demand has not dried up, it is simply lower than it has been, allowing producers to adjust their stocking and harvests over time. But if bad economic conditions threaten the retail sales mix, all bets are off. For many companies, costs have increased substantially due to the pandemic and there is little recourse but to pass them on. For example, the cost to Alaskan whitefish and salmon processors has been huge to simply operate this past year. Quarantine, hotel rooms, flights, testing, changes in plant procedures all have cut capacity and added costs at a time when a portion of the major Alaskan customers has simply disappeared. But you cannot pass on costs in an environment where your customers are collapsing. We have had a more successful year in 2020 than many imagined during the depths of the pandemic. Unless the government steps in to meet its economic responsibilities, 2021 is likely to be much worse than we can image today. How healthy our industry remains over the next few years literally depends on quickly getting an effective relief bill more than any other factor. Partisan politics may be fine as a side show. But the refusal of Republican to pass a large relief bill is now drawing blood. Unfortunately, it will be our blood, the lifeblood of our businesses. https://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/1187020/The-Winding-Glass-Every-Week-of-Delay-on-Federal-Relief-Adds-More-Damage-to-our-Industry

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