The Global Seafood Alliance (GSA) has published an update of the Responsible Fishing Vessel Standard (RFVS).

The RFVS is part of GSA’s Best Seafood Practices (BSP) certification program, which uses third-party certification to link responsible wild fisheries to certified vessels and processing plants.

The new RFVS Issue 2.0 replaces the previous Issue 1.1 in order to incorporate lessons learned and feedback by industry partners, during the certification pilots. A number of new requirements were applied to Issue 2.0, including the development and incorporation of a zero-tolerance policy for managing instances of serious human rights atrocities affecting crew members, as well as zero tolerance for the use of illegal child labor. Lastly, support/tender vessels can be included, audited, and certified as part of the group/fleet assessment process.

All of this was included in order to strengthen credibility of assurance of crew rights and welfare onboard certified fishing vessels, GSA said. The Issue 2.0 was published after a 60-day public comment period and GSA board approval.

Currently, 27 vessels that cover 610 crew members across the world are RFVS-certified under the RFVS Issue 1.1 and will not be subject to the new requirements until their certifications expire, three years after initial certification date. The first vessel to RFVS Issue 1.1 was certified in January 2021, less than a year out from the first significant update to RFVS in June 2020. Two fleets are in the process of getting certified to the new issue.

Separately, GSA has launched a consumer-facing website for its Best Aquaculture Practices certification, and a consumer-focused campaig via social media.

The launch of the “Healthy Fish, Healthy Planet, Healthy You!" campaign was in April 2022 and will continue through U.S. National Seafood Month in October. 

"The campaign is designed to heighten awareness of the BAP brand and, ultimately, drive sales of responsibly produced and sourced seafood," GSA said in a release. "To accomplish this, GSA is developing new relationships with national and regional consumer media and influencers to spread the word about BAP certification. The program will include information and education for media on responsible aquaculture production, the necessity of aquaculture in a growing world, and how certification can be the key to shopping responsibly. Additionally, to engage consumers in a fun and exciting way, GSA will launch a social media campaign dubbed 'Are You AquaCultured?' The campaign will encourage consumers to educate themselves about farmed seafood and become 'AquaCultured' in the process.

“Seafood producers and buyers have long known the benefits of BAP, and now it’s time to share those benefits with consumers so they can understand, appreciate and enjoy responsibly produced farmed seafood,” GSA CEO Brian Perkins said. “Our research has shown that the more consumers know about responsibly produced farmed seafood, the more they trust the BAP label and the retailers and restaurants who endorse it.”

Based on the results of this initial effort, GSA will look to roll out consumer campaigns in other markets as well as campaigns for its wild seafood certification program, Best Seafood Practices, it said.

Photo courtesy of RossHelen/Shutterstock

Chilled fish sales in U.K. grocery stores continued to decline in the most recent quarter, dampened by higher overall grocery prices.

Overall U.K. chilled fish sales dropped 8 percent year-on-year to GBP 493.3 million (USD 592 million, EUR 579 million) for the quarter ending 12 June, according to research firm Kantar.

The sub-categories with the biggest sales drops included battered (down 17.5 percent), breaded (down 16.6 percent), and smoked (down 12.1 percent). As a result, the greatest volume declines for the quarter were in battered seafood (down 18.3 percent), breaded seafood (down 18 percent), and smoked fish (down 14.9 percent).

“This fall in volume compared to the relatively better volume performance of chicken suggests that some shoppers maybe trading out of relatively more-expensive added-value products and [moving] into cheaper proteins that can stretch further,” Kantar said in its Meat, Poultry and Fish Market Update.

The overall volume in the meat, fish and poultry category is down 18 percent versus two years ago, “with value performance better on the back of strong inflation,” Kantar noted.

Like-for-like grocery price inflation reached 9.9 percent for the month ending 12 June, rising 1.6 percentage points from the previous month. It is the second-highest level of grocery inflation that Kantar has seen since it started tracking prices in 2008, Kantar Head of Retail and Consumer Insight Fraser McKevitt said in a press release.

“And we’re likely to surpass the previous high come August,” McKevitt said.

Inflation has had a dampening effect on seafood sales in the U.K. thus far in 2022, but overall, seafood prices have remained consistent since inflationary pressures have started to impact the wider grocery and protein market, Kantar Category Analyst Kell Davies told SeafoodSource.

“Seafood has the fourth-lowest inflation rate of 1.3 percent versus the main protein categories,” Davies said, referring to the most-recent quarter as compared to the same quarter of 2021. In contrast, chicken prices increased 11.5 percent over the same time period, and beef prices rose 7 percent.

Despite the inflationary trend, overall U.K. grocery sales rose 0.1 percent in the quarter, the first time sector sales have grown since April 2021, according to Kantar. Sales of products such as sun care and ice cream due to the extreme heat wave hitting Europe fueled overall increased sales.

Still, rising prices are leading to a change in shopping behavior.

“People are increasingly turning to own-label products to drive down the cost of their weekly shop,” McKevitt said.

Supermarkets’ own lines are growing by 4.1 percent, while sales of branded items dropped 2.4 percent.

“It’s a complex picture and the grocers are busy negotiating with their suppliers to mitigate impact at the tills as far as possible,” he said. “We’ve seen this play out in the headlines in recent weeks, with some well-known brands temporarily disappearing from supermarket shelves over pricing disputes.”

Britons are also shopping more in discount stores. Lidl was the fastest-growing supermarket again this quarter, sporting a 13.9 percent increase in sales, and Aldi’s sales soared by 11.3 percent.

“Over 67 percent of people in Britain shopped in either an Aldi or a Lidl in the past 12 weeks, with 1.4 million additional households visiting at least one of the discounters in the latest three months compared with last year. Both retailers reached a new market share high over the past three months,” McKevitt said.

Lidl now holds a 7 percent share of the market and Aldi climbed to a 9.1 percent share.

Tesco reported its first quarterly growth since October, with an increase of sales of 0.1 percent and a market share of 27.1 percent. Ocado was the only other retailer reporting growth, holding its market share steady at 1.8 percent while its sales rose 0.7 percent.

Sainsbury’s holds a 14.9 percent share of the market, followed by Asda at 13.7 percent and Morrisons 9.4 percent.

Photo courtesy of F-Stop boy/Shutterstock

The seafood sector in the U.S. Midwest was upturned during the COVID-19 pandemic, and now is coming back structured differently than it was prior to 2019.

Like the rest of the U.S. seafood industry, farmers, traders, and sellers of seafood in the center of the country experienced an existential challenge when COVID-19 first hit the country in early 2020, forcing nearly every company – large and small – to make drastic changes to their operating models to remain solvent.

Safety concerns and lockdowns combined with a major shift from foodservice and wholesale to retail to force those in the seafood industry in the Midwest to adapt or perish. In 2021, companies then had to deal with transportation difficulties, supply-chain interruptions, and rising prices. Many survived thanks to government support packages, though the seafood sectors in U.S. coastal states received additional benefits through the CARES Act.

Lauren Jescovitch, extension educator for fisheries and aquaculture for Michigan Sea Grant, said some companies were able to thrive during the pandemic as retail seafood sales soared, while others just barely managed to remain afloat, and some were forced to fold. In 2020, 248 companies held seafood-processing licenses in Michigan, while as of June 2022, just 233 remained. Jescovitch said Michigan’s seafood processing industry is now “just a different world” than before the pandemic, with a divide forming between companies that opened earlier on in the pandemic and those that waited to open, either because of market uncertainty or out of safety concerns.

“Those are the places that are having a harder time coming back,” Jescovitch said. “Those who remained open with extra precautions took a risk and ended up coming out ahead.”

Jescovitch told MiBiz most seafood businesses in Michigan changed their business to focus on retail, with a switch from 80 percent wholesale sales versus 20 percent retail to a flip of that in 2022, with 80 percent of sales going to retail now. Even seafood processors made a move into retail, opening storefront markets, with some installing drive-through windows.

In response to supply-chain challenges, many Midwestern seafood businesses sought out more local seafood options. Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A.-based Fishmongers of Michigan was founded in 2016 on a business model of importing seafood from Asia and South America and selling to local restaurants and wholesalers, but shifted to more local and regional sourcing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to MiBiz. Fishmongers of Michigan Co-Owner Louis Hamper said the pandemic led more Michigan seafood processors to source products locally, and to focus on local sales, as his company did in shifting focus to the independent grocery store market.

“It was a good thing for us to focus more attention on those networks,” Hamper said. “That is pretty much how we weathered the storm. We pivoted really quickly, and we were really fortunate.”

Indianapolis, Indiana-based Caplinger’s Fresh Catch Seafood decided to go even more local in 2021, making the decision to farm its own catfish after suffering through frequent shortages. Owner Andrew Caplinger said catfish is one of the most-popular items his restaurant group sells – accounting for 800 to 1,000 pounds served weekly. He hopes to grow around 500 pounds of that catfish from his own farm in southern Indiana.

“I’ve never done anything like this – I’ve sold dead fish my whole entire life,” he said. “It’s tough, and it might be risky. But assuming things go well and these fish grow like they should, we won’t have to look at raising our store prices again for some time.”

Caplinger’s foray into fish farming is an exception to a decline in the size of the aquaculture industry in the Midwest, a trend that accelerated during the pandemic. The number of aquaculture farms in the Midwest fell to 271 from 336 in 2010, according to the Associated Press, and the region accounts for just one-third of U.S. fish-farming operations despite being one-fifth of the country’s landmass.

Mike Searcy, who owns White Creek Farms in Seymour, Indiana, said the biggest difficulty he faces is finding processing capacity for the trout he raises. While Searcy sends his fish to be processed in the nearby state of Kentucky, other aquaculture operations have only one market for their fish – Asian food markets, where the fish are sold live. In response, Searcy is also considering adding a processing facility on his farm.

“We have demand from our local customers, but the biggest hindrance is the lack of processing – filling that gap between the farmer and the restaurant owner. That holds us back,” Searcy said. “When we’re competing with foreign markets and much cheaper labor, they can supply a fillet to the grocery stores a heck of a lot cheaper than what I can.”

Both Searcy and Hamper said a labor shortage – a problem across the United States – has also emerged as a significant hindrance to their growth.

“After we went through that initial shift, we continued to grow,” Hamper said. “We are in a growth phase right now, and it is really hard to get people to work.”

Joseph Morris, the former director of the North Central Regional Aquaculture Center at Iowa State University, said buying patterns show Midwestern consumers are eating more seafood, reflecting a rise in seafood-consumption rates across the U.S., which is opening an opportunity for local seafood purveyors.

“The big hurdle to tackle – how can they produce a product, economically, to meet the consumer needs and still stay in business?” he said. “How do you reach the growing market of people wanting to eat fish?”

One solution being pursued by smaller and larger operations alike is land-based aquaculture, including recirculating aquaculture systems. Searcy is using such a system for his farming, and larger companies like AquaBounty, Superior Fresh, NaturalShrimp, TruShrimp, and others are in various stages of constructing land-based seafood-rearing facilities throughout the region.

Farming fish in the United States will also be a more-expensive proposition than importing them from abroad, where labor is cheaper, but with global seafood consumption expected to increase by 100 to 170 billion pounds by 2030, there’s an opportunity for Midwestern farmers to meet demand, according to Amy Shambach, an aquaculture marketing outreach associate with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant.

The key will be a successful marketing effort and proving to customers there’s a noticeable difference between cheaper imports and locally raised fish, Morris said.

“In terms of Midwest aquaculture overall, the growth has got to be with the food-fish operation. That’s where your market is — a consumer basis,” Morris said. “There are consumers wanting to eat more and more fish in Midwest. We have to focus on that. A new generation of folks are eating more fish, and they’re asking more often, ‘Where’s my food coming from?’ That’s where the Midwest comes in.”

Photo courtesy of Aquaculture Research Lab Purdue Extension