Business Toolbox: Poisonous product
Will safer puffer fish have less appeal?
SHIMONOSEKI, Japan — Poison has been as integral to fugu, the funny-looking, potentially deadly puffer fish prized by Japanese gourmands, as the savor of its pricey meat. So consider fugu, but poison-free.
Thanks to advances in fugu research and farming, Japanese fish farmers are now mass-producing fugu as harmless as goldfish. Most important, they have taken the poison out of fugu’s liver, considered both its most delicious and potentially most lethal part, one whose consumption has left countless Japanese dead over the centuries and whose sale remains illegal in the country.
But what could be seen as potential good news for gourmands has instead been grounds for controversy: powerful interests in the fugu industry, playing on lingering safety fears, are fighting to keep the ban on fugu livers even from poison-free fish.
“We won’t approve it,” Hisashi Matsumura, the president of the Shimonoseki Fugu Association and vice president of the National Fugu Association, said of the legalization of fugu liver. He added, “We’re not engaging in this irrelevant discussion.”
Acting as a giant clearinghouse, this port city in southwestern Japan buys fugu from all over Japan and China, guts it and expertly removes its poison before shipping it throughout Japan and as far as New York. Though Shimonoseki’s share has fallen in recent years, it still controls about half of Japan’s fugu market.
But the city’s business, predicated on the fact that fugu is poisonous, now faces a threat with poison-free, farmed fugu liver.
Already, a prefecture in Kyushu, south of here, defiantly serves it. A town in another prefecture applied to be designated a special farmed fugu liver-eating zone.
And a group of scientists served it in March at a Tokyo tasting event for some 40 chefs and restaurant-related businessmen. All ate. All survived. – New York Times
Business Toolbox: The enviroment
Vikings weren't concerned abpit food miles
Food miles are not a new phenomenon, according to new research which shows that cod from Arctic Norway were being consumed over a thousand miles away by sea on the Baltic as early as 1000 AD.
Researchers suspect dried cod from the Lofoten Islands, north of the Arctic circle, may have come to Britain with the Vikings and could be found in Viking centres such as York.
Preliminary results, using a new technique for testing fish bones to identify which waters they were from, show that dried cod was transported over vast distances from the beginning of the explosion in commercial fishing from 950-1050 AD.
Researchers discovered an explosion in commercial sea fishing activity around the first millennium AD, which surprised them because it showed that diets in Britain and Continental Europe moved back to fish after a gap of thousands of years.
James Barrett from Cambridge university, who led the research, said: "The start of sea fishing around 1000 AD surprised us enormously. We thought that it would have developed at around the time of the discovery of Newfoundland or had always been there. Neither was true."
Though communities around the Baltic continued to harvest sea fish between the late stone age and the first Millennium AD, the rest of Europe appears to have stopped until the strictures of the Church on fasting and not eating meat created a demand for fish.
Once our ancestors rediscovered their ability to harvest the seas, fish consumption rocketed, with herring and cod the most popular staples -- indicating man's influence on the sea and on fish populations dates back a thousand years.
Researchers are now looking to see how early the long distance trade in dried cod reached Britain, using a technique which relies on analysing the collagen in cod bones. – The Telegraph, UK
Wednesday, May 7, 2008P
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Feds not stopping contaminated imports
WASHINGTON — In March, inspectors checking Chinese seafood arriving at U.S. ports made some unsettling discoveries: fish infected with salmonella in Seattle and Baltimore, and shrimp with banned veterinary drugs in Florida.
Meanwhile, a shipment intercepted in Los Angeles on March 19 labeled "channel catfish" wasn't catfish at all, although records don't say what it was.
"A lot of those products coming in from overseas, you have no clue as to what is in them," said Paul Hitchens, an aquaculture specialist in Southern Illinois, where cut-rate Chinese catfish are threatening the livelihood of fish farmers.
China has rapidly become the leading exporter of seafood to the United States, flooding supermarkets and restaurants. And while China agreed late last year to improve the safety of its food exports, the inspectors' March findings were not isolated cases.
According to Food and Drug Administration records examined by the Post-Dispatch, inspectors turned away nearly 400 shipments of tainted seafood in a year's time from China.
The records told a troubling tale, but even more troubling was what they didn't tell. Only a tiny fraction of imports are inspected at all, and even fewer are tested.
Imports of seafood have surged dramatically in recent years and account for nearly 80 percent of the seafood consumed by Americans. That translates to 4.8 billion pounds of imported seafood last year out of the 5.8 billion pounds consumed.
The United States is just starting to confront the challenge: In an increasingly globalized food supply, the government — using an antiquated inspection system — is unprepared to keep Americans safe from the dangers arriving at our ports.
"When you look at less than 1 percent of shipments, and sample and test maybe one-fifth of those, there's no way you can protect the American food supply," said Michael Taylor, a former FDA official who is professor of health policy at George Washington University.
Seafood is considered one of the riskiest imports, and those from China have risen steadily. When the FDA does turn away shipments, usually it is because they contain veterinary drugs, among them nitrofurans, a family of antibiotics banned by the FDA because tests showed they cause cancer in animals.
More than 100 of the shipments were rejected for being filthy, decomposed or otherwise unfit for consumption, according to the records. – St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Business Toolbox: Poisonous product
Will safer puffer fish have less appeal?
SHIMONOSEKI, Japan — Poison has been as integral to fugu, the funny-looking, potentially deadly puffer fish prized by Japanese gourmands, as the savor of its pricey meat. So consider fugu, but poison-free.
Thanks to advances in fugu research and farming, Japanese fish farmers are now mass-producing fugu as harmless as goldfish. Most important, they have taken the poison out of fugu’s liver, considered both its most delicious and potentially most lethal part, one whose consumption has left countless Japanese dead over the centuries and whose sale remains illegal in the country.
But what could be seen as potential good news for gourmands has instead been grounds for controversy: powerful interests in the fugu industry, playing on lingering safety fears, are fighting to keep the ban on fugu livers even from poison-free fish.
“We won’t approve it,” Hisashi Matsumura, the president of the Shimonoseki Fugu Association and vice president of the National Fugu Association, said of the legalization of fugu liver. He added, “We’re not engaging in this irrelevant discussion.”
Acting as a giant clearinghouse, this port city in southwestern Japan buys fugu from all over Japan and China, guts it and expertly removes its poison before shipping it throughout Japan and as far as New York. Though Shimonoseki’s share has fallen in recent years, it still controls about half of Japan’s fugu market.
But the city’s business, predicated on the fact that fugu is poisonous, now faces a threat with poison-free, farmed fugu liver.
Already, a prefecture in Kyushu, south of here, defiantly serves it. A town in another prefecture applied to be designated a special farmed fugu liver-eating zone.
And a group of scientists served it in March at a Tokyo tasting event for some 40 chefs and restaurant-related businessmen. All ate. All survived. – New York Times
Business Toolbox: The enviroment
Vikings weren't concerned abpit food miles
Food miles are not a new phenomenon, according to new research which shows that cod from Arctic Norway were being consumed over a thousand miles away by sea on the Baltic as early as 1000 AD.
Researchers suspect dried cod from the Lofoten Islands, north of the Arctic circle, may have come to Britain with the Vikings and could be found in Viking centres such as York.
Preliminary results, using a new technique for testing fish bones to identify which waters they were from, show that dried cod was transported over vast distances from the beginning of the explosion in commercial fishing from 950-1050 AD.
Researchers discovered an explosion in commercial sea fishing activity around the first millennium AD, which surprised them because it showed that diets in Britain and Continental Europe moved back to fish after a gap of thousands of years.
James Barrett from Cambridge university, who led the research, said: "The start of sea fishing around 1000 AD surprised us enormously. We thought that it would have developed at around the time of the discovery of Newfoundland or had always been there. Neither was true."
Though communities around the Baltic continued to harvest sea fish between the late stone age and the first Millennium AD, the rest of Europe appears to have stopped until the strictures of the Church on fasting and not eating meat created a demand for fish.
Once our ancestors rediscovered their ability to harvest the seas, fish consumption rocketed, with herring and cod the most popular staples -- indicating man's influence on the sea and on fish populations dates back a thousand years.
Researchers are now looking to see how early the long distance trade in dried cod reached Britain, using a technique which relies on analysing the collagen in cod bones. – The Telegraph, UK
Thursday, May 8, 2008P
Business Toolbox: The law
Louisiana lawmakers pursuing fish fraud statute
BATON ROUGE -- A weakened bill prohibiting restaurants from misrepresenting that they serve Louisiana shrimp or crawfish when they use the imported variety unanimously cleared the House Commerce Committee Tuesday, the first time in almost a decade a seafood disclosure bill has made it to the full House for debate.
Rep. Fred Mills Jr., D-St. Martinville, amended his House Bill 266 to prohibit the owner or manager of a restaurant from telling diners that the seafood comes from Louisiana when it is imported.
Mills, whose district includes crawfish farms and fishers, called the bill a compromise. He said some of the language in the amended bill was suggested by the Louisiana Restaurant Association, which has traditionally opposed such legislation, citing the costs of frequent menu changes or sign-postings.
"I would like it stronger and they (restaurant lobbyists) would like less," Mills said.
The bill started out to require signs or menus to inform customers when a crawfish dish is made using a foreign product. The original bill called for fines and possible jail time for violators.
Mills said the amended bill was expanded to include shrimp, but removes the threat of jail, allows a restaurant to either post a sign, place a notice on a menu or orally inform the patron of the origins of the crawfish or shrimp used -- but only if asked. – New Orleans Times-Picayune
Business Toolbox: Your competition
Largest seafood chain in Canada goes national
CALGARY - Joey's Only Seafood Restaurants is making a big splash on Canadian airwaves this spring with a fresh new tag line, "We've set a place for you at Joey's," and with its first-ever nationwide radio campaign set to launch May 19.
"We are the largest Canadian seafood restaurant chain in Canada, and we want Canadians to know that fact," says Kathy Campitelli, vice president for marketing for Joey's Only Franchising Ltd.
Joey's has over 85 restaurants from BC to Ontario and they serve more than 6.5 million guests annually.
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Opinion: Virginia panel to blame for crab shortage
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) is charged with managing the blue crab fishery, including licensing gear used to catch blue crabs. The crab population thrived until the early 1990s. The last time the amount of spawning adult crabs in the Chesapeake Bay was above the targeted amount was in 1993. It has been below that level since, and in 1999 it went to the minimum safe level.
In 1994, a moratorium was put on all crab gear licenses by the VMRC. That year 375 licenses for crab dredging gear were issued. Last month, VMRC prohibited the use of crab dredging gear, without warning and without compensation, and over the advice of the Blue Crab Management Advisory Committee. Crab dredging gear is but one type of gear used to harvest the blue crab, and it has been used since1906.
In 1994 there were 2,081 crab/peeler pot licenses issued, which was to be the limit. From 1994 to 1999 VMRC introduced at least 983 additional licenses -- about 30 percent more -- into a below-target population of crabs, causing over-fishing.
After 14 years and about 20 regulations, VMRC has failed -- the blue crab population is as low as it ever been.
I'm asking the Virginian public to contact their local and state representatives to demand the removal of all the responsible VMRC staff involved with the demise of the blue crab, the restructuring of the way the crabs are regulated, and deference to the Blue Crab Management Advisory Committee. -- Ty Farrington of Poquoson writing to the Daily Press, VA
Friday, May 9, 2008P
Business Toolbox: Marketing
Restaurant features a ‘trash fish’ tasting
CAPE MAY, N.J. -- Socialize, taste new food, learn to eat in a sustainable manner and support the Wetlands Institute – all at Quahog’s Seafood Shack for a first ever “Trash Fish” Tasting.
This will be an evening to remember complete with delicious local seafood prepared by Lucas Manteca of Sea Salt, his partner Carlos Barroz, and several renowned local chefs.
There will be fresh organic salad and vegetables from local growers, and wine from local vineyards. The evening benefits the Wetlands Institute.
Speakers from the local fisheries and organic farms will pass on their wisdom about eating more healthfully and more sustainably. The guest chefs will have cooking tips for lesser known fish.
The terms “trash fish” or “bycatch” refer to the fish that are discarded by commercial fisherman. There are about 2,200 species of finfish in the coastal and inland waters of the United States and Canada alone, but only 25% of this number are currently harvested for human food.
The “Trash Fish” Tasting will present underutilized fish species as delicious and viable dinner options. – Cape May County Herald
Business Toolbox: Your supply
West Coast restaurants going cold turkey over salmon
For as long as anyone can remember, salmon has been a staple on local restaurant menus. That won't change, but for the first time in the storied history of fishing-rich Monterey Bay, none of it will be local. Chefs instead will turn to other sources, most likely non-sustainable Atlantic farmed salmon.
Due to the collapse of salmon stocks along the California and Oregon coast — last fall's fish count in the Sacramento River and its tributaries fell to 68,000, after a count of 800,000 just six years ago — the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted last month to cancel the Chinook fishing season — an unprecedented action.
The closure represents a financial disaster for commercial fishermen, but it comes as little surprise to the scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, who for years have led a clarion call urging the preservation of healthy ecosystems that sustain ocean wildlife.
On May 16-17, the aquarium's annual Cooking for Solutions event will assemble a group of chefs, vintners, farmers and foodies as it hosts a series of events to promote a culinary lifestyle designed to help protect the health of the ocean and the soil.
"Most people have had a vague understanding of this issue, but the closing of salmon season really brought it home for a lot of people," said chef, author and sustainable food expert John Ash, one of the participating chefs. – Monterey County Herald, Calif.
Business Toolbox: Your environment
Greens say retailer stonewalling on farm fish escape
LONDON – A wild-fish lobby group has accused supermarket giant Tesco of a whitewash in its investigation into the escape of thousands of trout from a fish farm.
The 4,047 rainbow trout, worth £15,000, escaped from the Scot Trout farm, near Oban, on 1 March. About 3,000 were recovered, but the Argyll Salmon Fishery Board said Tesco has since ignored requests to meet the investigator.
Andrew Wallace, the managing director of the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards, said: "Unless we see Tesco taking meaningful action against Scot Trout, then we have to draw the conclusion that the codes of conduct on fish farming that Tesco have amount to no more than lip-service." -- Scotsman, UK
Business Toolbox: Your costs
Fishermen’s price set for Canadian snow crab
ST. JOHN'S, Newfoundland — A dispute over the price being paid to crab fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador has apparently been resolved.
Fisheries union president Earle McCurdy says the current price of $1.50 a pound is the lowest it will go this season. The Fish Pricing Panel used to review the price of crab every two weeks, and set the price according to market conditions.
But McCurdy says that system doesn't work any more.
Some crab fishermen upset with prices had been refusing to set their traps.
Even at $1.50, some have said it's not worth their while to go fishing, given the increasing cost of such things as fuel. – Canadian Press
