Tom Seaman, editorial director of Undercurrent News, brings you a roundup of the main stories from the previous week.
Two stories on shrimp prices topped our most-read list last week. In Ecuador, many shrimp farms have been forced to close down or halt their activities due to the COVID-19 crisis, as production costs currently outweigh the benefits, several sources from the country's shrimp sector told Maria Feijoo.
"As an example of how bad the situation is, shrimp previously sold for $2.50 per pound is now being sold for $1.10. At best, this barely covers production costs," a small shrimp producer from Pedernales, Manabi, told Maria.
Meanwhile, wild-caught Argentine red shrimp importers in Europe hope buyers’ demand doesn’t shift to farmed vannamei due to the low prices, sources in the industry told Maria. Prices for Argentine shrimp are set high, as a result of current low inventories, they said.
"Argentine red shrimp has been in the European market for many years, being an attractive market for importers and buyers in Europe so low vannamei prices won't affect us at all here," one source that manages vessels in Argentina and exports mostly to the EU and China told Maria.
"However, it will make a huge difference in China where our market share will most likely decrease," he added. "We hope exports to the Asian country to recover from October onward, though, when they usually start gearing up for Chinese New Year celebrations. If not, things will get complicated for us since we will have to try and sell all our stock mainly in the European market."
In China, a fifth of seafood industry executives surveyed by Undercurrent fear the country's consumption could fall by over 50% following a barrage of bad news linking imported seafood to the coronavirus. Should these forecasts pan out, global seafood consumption could drop significantly because of the size of China’s population and high per capita seafood consumption.
China will import 40,000 metric tons less fresh salmon this year, one of China's largest importers told Louis Harkell.
Retail sales of salmon are currently 10-20% of normal levels, Dennis Cai, chief executive of salmon importer and processor Chuner Group, told Louis, as consumer confidence is shaken by a series of incidents going back to the initial outbreak of the coronavirus at a seafood market in Wuhan.
"Consumer confidence in salmon is at a historic low. All this bad news adds to the concerns among consumers about seafood safety," said Cai, whose firm produces fresh salmon sashimi and portions for Alibaba Group's Hema Fresh and Costco stores in China.
"And among all the species salmon and shrimp so far are the hardest hit," he said, referring to another recent scare linking imported Ecuadorian shrimp to coronavirus.
In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic and all of the extra complications that it has brought, Guatemala's largest shrimp farmer, Acuamaya, is carrying out business improvements on all fronts with an eye to expanding European and Asian exports.
Gabriel Biguria, who heads sales for the 700-employee firm, told Jason Smith that the April news that Acuamaya had become Guatemala's first firm to be granted Aquaculture Stewardship Council certification for its three farms couldn't have come at a better time. The firm has been working with European shrimp distributors Klaas Puul, owned by the UK's Sykes Seafood, and Heiploeg, owned by Dutch giant Parlevliet & Van der Plas, to expand sales of Acuamaya's Tikal and Crystal Ponds brands.
The ASC certification, along with the farmer's installation of an IQF freezer tunnel, has opened doors for the company particularly in the Netherlands where it is now selling certified, peeled and deveined shrimp that carries both the company's logo and the tagline "the jewels of Guatemala", Biguria said.
The pandemic is causing major shifts in the US shrimp market. Big deliveries from Ecuador and Indonesia kept the US stocked full of imported shrimp during the month of June in spite of another weak month by India, the latest trade data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show.
The US imported 51,042 metric tons of shrimp worth $422.6 million in June, 3% less in volume and 2% less in value than in June 2019, Jason Huffman found when he reviewed the NOAA data. Similarly, the price changed little in June, as shrimp garnered an average $8.30/kg, a difference of only 1% from the $8.18/kg paid in June 2019 and down just 1% from the $8.41/kg paid in May.
All of that may sound like a ho-hum performance by June, but it was still a major improvement over May 2020, when the US showed the first signs of its impact from the coronavirus pandemic, importing just 37,961t worth $319m – 29% less volume and 28% less value than imported in May 2019.
A new seafood-related legal battle has emerged in the US. Norwegian salmon farming giant Mowi and Mowi Ducktrap -- its Portland, Maine-based smoked salmon operation -- have been hit with a lawsuit charging them with violating Washington, DC's deceptive marketing practices laws by declaring their products to be sustainably sourced.
The 29-page complaint, filed July 30 on behalf of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) in the civil division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, points to several of Mowi's labeling claims, including that its Ducktrap smoked Atlantic salmon is "sustainably sourced" and "all natural" or "100% all natural".
"In reality, the products are made from salmon industrially farmed using unsustainable and environmentally destructive practices," OCA charges in its lawsuit. "...The products are made from salmon that are treated with artificial chemicals, such as antibiotics and pesticides."
Meanwhile, Donald Trump's US administration will extend the exemptions made for its 25% tariffs placed on haddock, Alaskan sole, plaice and several kinds of crabmeat, including snow, king and Dungeness, imported from China.
However, US importers of Chinese frozen tilapia, red swimming crab and slipper lobster should get ready to feel the sting of the tariffs return. Their tariff exemptions have not yet been addressed and are running out of time.
Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, also weighed in with support for Ecuador in its complaints about Chinese commercial fishing vessels reportedly invading the Galapagos marine reserve.
"The People’s Republic of China subsidizes the world’s largest commercial fishing fleet, which routinely violates the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of coastal states, fishes without permission, and overfishes licensing agreements," the high-ranking member of president Donald Trump's cabinet said in a statement published Sunday. "Given this unfortunate record of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, rule-breaking, and willful environmental degradation, it is more important than ever that the international community stands together for the rule of law and insists on better environmental stewardship from Beijing.
Then, US-listed NaturalShrimp -- a Texas-based company which claims to have developed and patented the first commercial recirculating aquaculture system for shrimp -- has inked a $10m deal for a water treatment firm, it announced.
Last month, NaturalShrimp announced its intent to double the planned capacity at its site in Lacoste, Texas by building a second identical 40,000 square foot production facility adjacent to the original one currently under construction.
August 10, 2020 at 04:12PM
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Editor's recap: Rock-bottom Ecuador shrimp prices concern Argentine red suppliers; Worry for China consumption dive - Undercurrent News
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