Seafood News, March 17, 2014 : ** News from the Boston Seafood Show -now called Seafood Expo North America. Traffic has been good, the amount of overseas companies n visitors has increased. Above all the signs point towards a strong US seafood market this year, as US consumers appear to be still interested in many products despite higher prices. ** Gulf seafood launches a new sustainability site and campaign, Sea Pact announces two new grant recipients, The NFI salmon council has launched a promotional campaign ‘Hooked on Salmon’, NFI’s future leaders raised over $5,000 for SIRF-the industry research fund; Trident introduced 9 new value added items and reconfigured its retail packaging. Also, High Liner and King n Prince won the new products awards and Canadian seafood export value has surged 6.5% last year. ** ASEAN: To meet the increasing demand of global consumers for sustainable and environmentally friendly seafood, shrimp farmers have a wide range of certification-granting organizations to choose from, like the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship Council, Global GAP and the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices. However, the large number of certification-granting organizations is causing confusions for not only shrimp farmers and exporters, but also for consumers and having multiple certificates increases costs for all parties. Consequently, at a meeting in Thailand in Dec 2013, ASEAN members agreed to establish a set of common standards for shrimp farmers and exporters. ** Sino Agro Food, an integrated, diversified agriculture technology and organic food company with principal operations in the P.R. of China, expects to break ground on a 300,000 ton a year “prawn” farm [Penaeus vannamei] during the first quarter of 2014. ** Thai shrimp farmers proceeding with caution, but production of 350,000 tons expected this year.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 22:53:59 +0000