How Well, and How Poorly, We Harvest Ocean Life
Written by Cornelia Dean | Science Writer
Ray Hilborn, a fisheries scientist at the University of Washington, wades into this disagreement in his new book and comes out with a lucid explication of a highly tangled issue.
Each argument, he concludes, has some truth on its side. “It depends on where you look,” he writes. “You can paint horror story after horror story if you want. You can paint success after success.”
He navigates the path between horror and success through scores of questions and answers, nearly all of which demonstrate how difficult it is to sort this issue out.
Take the most basic question: What is overfishing? There are several answers, the book tells us. There is “yield overfishing,” in which people take so many fish that they leave too few to spawn or catch too many fish before they are grown. Then there is “economic overfishing,” in which economic benefits are less than they could be. If too many boats chase too few fish, for example, the struggle to make a good catch leads to overspending on boats, fuel and so on.
(There is also “ecological overfishing,” but that is something we must live with as long as we want to eat fish, Dr. Hilborn says. Fishing by definition alters the marine environment.)
Dr. Hilborn tells us of fisheries that succeed — like the halibut industry in Alaska — and fish stocks managed into difficulty, and then out again, like the pollock of the Bering Sea.
And he gets into the issue of trawling, in which boats drop weighted nets to the bottom and drag them along, scraping up everything in their path. Critics liken trawling to harvesting timber by clear-cutting. For Dr. Hilborn, this analogy is not always apt, since in some areas the creatures rapidly repopulate the ocean floor.
Some countries do well by their fish, he writes, but with one exception they are relatively small: New Zealand, Iceland and Norway. The exception? The United States.
The true lesson of this book is that fisheries science is complicated; that the management of any given species must be considered in terms of its ecosystem; that fishing for one species alters the food web as a whole — and that sometimes there is not enough data to make good recommendations.
California Seafood and Fisheries Institute
Mission Statement
MISSION STATEMENT
As stated in the CFSI bylaws
This Institute is an association of individuals and business firms engaged in, or allied to, the consumer seafood supply industry. It is formed for the following purposes:
1. To preserve, foster and promote the consumer seafood supply industry, and related activities and to advocate sound legislation for the improvement, preservation, and promotion of the industry; and
2. To market and promote the consumption of seafood and to provide, enhance and communicate a positive image of seafood products and the seafood industry to consumers; and
3. To protect the right of the public to demand free and continuous access to seafood of all types as a valuable source of food and useful commercial products; and
4. To advocate true conservation through utilization of the maximum sustainable yield of all marine resources; and
5. To encourage efforts to plant and maintain those species of marine life susceptible to scientific propogation.
Barrier packaging: Tuna fish moving from metal to plastics
In an interview with PlasticsToday during the Medtec trade show in Stuttgart, Germany, Wolfgang Czizegg, CEO at Waldorf Technik, which makes robotics and automation for injection molding cells, confirmed his company is part of a team tasked to create an injection molding cell for an as-yet unnamed brand owner that wants to test whether its tuna fish can be packed and marketed in plastics packaging rather than in metal tins.
Waldorf and the other companies involved-co-injection molding technology supplier Kortec (Ipswich, MA) and Intravis, a supplier of quality assurance vision inspection systems, just delivered a molding cell at an unidentified processor, who will run a 32-cavity mold for the brand owner as part of its production trials and for initial marketing purposes. “This will be a huge market,” said Czizegg. If the packaging proves suitable, as Czizegg predicts, then the brand owner will order another nine large molds to convert its production from metal to plastics.
As we reported earlier this year, these three companies claim to have developed an injection molding system and Q/A equipment allowing for high-volume molding of polypropylene containers with an EVOH (ethylene vinyl alcohol) barrier in which the barrier layer’s consistency can be 100% verified in-line. EVOH, a copolymer of ethylene and vinyl alcohol, is often used as a barrier material to prevent oxygen ingression and CO2 egress. The 3-layer tuna fish packaging structures are retortable. The package relies on polypropylene with an EVOH barrier layer.
The novelty is not so much the co-injection, but rather the claim of 100% proof that the EVOH barrier layer in every container is perfect throughout the complete body of the container. Waldorf calls the technology its Check´n Pack EVOHsystem. Waldorf claims its system allows 360° rim, 360° side wall, bottom and injection point inspection. A shelf life of up to two years can be promised even for sensitive products such as fish, meat, fruit and pet food.
Switching from metal containers to plastics packaging could lead to significant savings in production and logistics for the brand owners, claims Waldorf. Plastic containers also of course offer more design options.
FishWatch logo to appear on packaging
FishWatch logo to appear on packaging
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By Steven Hedlund, SeafoodSource editor
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is working with a few seafood companies to test the FishWatch logo on their packaging.
NOAA’s FishWatch Web site features about 80 U.S.-caught species and includes information to help consumers eliminate the confusion and guesswork associated with seafood consumption. The site was introduced in 2007 and re-launched at the 2008 International Boston Seafood Show.
The logo is not an eco-label but a way to guide consumers toward the FishWatch site, said Katie Semon, senior project manager for FishWatch, at the World Aquaculture Society’s Aquaculture 2010 conference in San Diego last week.
“This is just a pilot project. It’s just starting to get underway,” she explained. “We’ve made that clear with the people that we’re working with, and it’s only a select few.”
Atlantic Capes Fisheries, one of the East Coast’s largest vertically integrated sea scallop producers, will be using the logo on its sea scallop packaging, said Semon. The packaging featuring the logo is not yet in stores but will be soon, she explained. The Cape May, N.J., company produces more than 10 million pounds of sea scallops annually and also has an office in New Bedford, Mass.
NOAA is also in talks with CleanFish about using the logo, said Semon. The San Francisco firm advises eco-conscious fish farms and wild fisheries on how to improve their operations and connects them with like-minded distributors.
FishWatch has also partnered and shared its information with the National Fisheries Institute, the California Fisheries and Seafood Institute, Aquarium of the Pacific, King’s Seafood Co. and Publix.
NOAA this year will work with its aquaculture office and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to profile U.S.-farmed seafood, added Semon.
Source -http://www.seafoodsource.com/newsarticledetail.aspx?id=4294989563
Alaska Airlines – Guidelines for Shipping Seafood
All Star-Box packaging is approved for shipping on Alaska Airlines. See the Guidelines here: http://www.alaskaair.com/as/www2/cargo/Shipping-Fish.asp
Guidelines for Shipping Seafood
Live and Fresh Fish & Seafood can be accepted as checked baggage or shipped as cargo provided our airlines’ preparation, packaging and packing requirements are met.
Packaging
- Freeze or chill seafood thoroughly before packaging for best final destination temperature.
- Select durable, watertight packaging, preferable with insulation. Sturdy metal or hard plastic camping coolers, or waxed corrugated cartons (wetlock boxes) are the preferred shipping containers.
- Wetlock Cartons
- A multi-walled, waxed fiberboard / cardboard wetlock carton is the accepted container, provided one 4-mil polyethylene bag, or two 2-mil bags is used inside.
- A standard wetlock carton shall provide easy handling, better stacking capability and allow for maximum cubic space capacity.
- Bags must be sealed with elastic bands or nylon clips to prevent leakage.
- Wetlock boxes should have the bottom stressed for 275 pounds and the top for 200 pounds.
- Coated waxed cartons may be used for shipping frozen seafood.
- Previously used cartons shall not be acceptable.
- Containers must be sealed or secured with strapping tape, or a similar material.
- Unapproved styrofoam coolers or boxes shall not be accepted by Alaska Airlines.
- Gel ice packs are recommended to hold perishables at proper temperatures.
- Wet ice is not allowed.
- Dry ice is excellent for freezing perishables. Each container must be clearly marked with the words “DRY ICE” and the quantity of dry ice. More than 5 pounds requires the processing of Dangerous Goods documentation.
- High standards of packaging on all seafood shipments must be maintained.
- Leakage must be prevented at all times.
- Seafood shipments must be packed to withstand:
- Stacking up to six feet high.
- Pressure from adjacent cargo.
- Crushing action of tie-down straps.
- Manual Handling.
- Exposure to the elements between the aircraft and cargo terminal facilities.
Air cargo: Accuracy, timing are everything
https://www.seafoodsource.com/newsarticledetail.aspx?id=11153
Air cargo: Accuracy, timing are everything
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By Melissa Wood, SeaFood Business assistant editor
18 July, 2011 – Not unlike the fishermen who first raised their cargo from uncertain seas, those depending on air transportation for fresh seafood live and die by the weather.
“The wintertime is probably my most stressful time of year because I have so much product that’s being bumped,” says John Sands, director of fresh purchasing for Supreme Lobster & Seafood Co. in Las Vegas, which distributes fresh seafood to many of the city’s hopping hotels and restaurants.
The ability to serve fresh seafood — Maine lobster, Alaska salmon, Dover sole, Spanish shrimp — in a city surrounded by mountains in the Mojave Desert is not a miracle but an expectation, and air cargo makes this possible. Despite challenges such as increasing fuel charges, those in the cargo industry report growing demand and in response offer up-to-date technology and services to help their customers’ shipments reach their destinations safely and on time.
“When I first moved here, there was probably a small handful of restaurants that were dedicated to serving fresh seafood,” remembers Sands, who says that the introduction of wide-bodied jets in the early 1980s created a global market for fresh seafood. On a random Tuesday in May, for example, Sands had 22 air bills — 4 tons of fresh seafood — that had to be picked up from various airlines.
“Now we have so many chefs that have moved out here, especially from the East Coast, and chefs from Europe, and they expect the freshest product they can get their hands on,” says Sands.
The only time he can recall when a delay was accepted by those chefs was on 9/11 and its aftermath, when they knew that the planes were not in the air.
“They don’t want to hear that the plane is late or that the pilot had to take on extra fuel because of a storm and the product got taken off [the plane] in Denver and will be here in three hours,” says Sands. “That’s not in their vocabulary.”
Click here to read the rest of the feature on air cargo, which was written by SeaFood Business Assistant Editor Melissa Wood and appeared in the magazine’s July issue.
Star-Box, Inc
Star-Box, Inc. is an ON TIME / ON DEMAND provider of temperature sensitive and industrial packaging products. We specialize in supplying high quality products for the Seafood, Floral, Meat & Poultry, Fresh Produce and Live Tropical Fish industries.
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