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News: Former Food Exec gets Seven Years in Pen
NEW YORK - The former chief marketing officer of U.S. Foodservice Inc., a subsidiary of supermarket giant Royal Ahold NV, was sentenced to seven years in prison Thursday for his role in a widespread securities fraud that cost investors $800 million.
Mark P. Kaiser, 52, of Ellicott City, Md., could have received life in prison for crimes that the federal prosecutor called "an astonishing degree of corruption at the highest levels of corporate America." U.S. Foodservice, based in Columbia, Md., is one of the country's largest distributors of food products to restaurants and cafeterias. Ahold agreed this month to sell the company to two New York-based buyout firms for $7.1 billion. Griesa ordered Kaiser to pay a $50,000 fine and serve two years on probation after his release from prison. A jury convicted Kaiser in November of securities fraud, conspiracy and making false filings after hearing evidence that he helped U.S. Foodservice overstate earnings from 2000 to 2003 by recording, as income, promotional rebates the company hadn't earned. Prosecutors portrayed Kaiser as the creator of a fraud to overstate earnings by $800 million from 2000 to 2003 by reporting fake rebates from suppliers, moves which increased the participants' own bonuses. The prosecution said Kaiser was seeking to burnish his resume and succeed James L. Miller as chief executive officer. Kaiser was the only person to go to trial for the fraud that cut Royal Ahold's market value by $6 billion and cost investors $800 million, prosecutors said. More than a dozen people were charged in the case. The rest pleaded guilty to various charges. U.S. Foodservice's former finance chief, Michael Resnick, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and was sentenced in December to six months of house arrest. Yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence Gerschwer had asked the judge to impose a sentence of up to 20 years on Kaiser. Defense lawyer Richard Morvillo asked that his client get no jail time, saying more than a dozen others who had pleaded guilty or admitted roles in the fraud were not sentenced to prison. But the judge said he had to sentence Kaiser to prison because the criminal conduct was serious. Ahold said in 2003 that it had overstated its earnings by more than $1 billion, mostly because of the fraud at U.S. Foodservice, and its stock lost 60 percent of its value, shaving $6 billion from its market cap almost overnight. – Baltimore Sun News: Group Says Europe Can Lead in Saving Sharks LONDON -- The European Union could lead Japan and the rest of the world in the conservation of some of the more vulnerable and endangered shark stocks if it opted to strengthen its ineffective ban on shark finning, the Shark Alliance said last week.The pronouncement came from a new scientific report -- funded by the Lenfest Ocean Program and backed by the Shark Alliance -- which determined that the current enforcement approach in Europe of applying a "fin to carcass weight ratio" to calculate how many sharks could be fished was both complicated and inadequate. "The European fishermen leave a lot of flesh and tail attached to the fins when they carry out the finning process compared to fishermen in the United States, Taiwan or Japan for example," shark specialist Sarah Fowler said. Fowler, like many other shark conservationists, is concerned that if a Japanese fisherman, for example, employs the European ratio which allows for very heavy fins, he would be able to fin several sharks; keeping the fins from them all but dumping the carcasses back in the sea. The Shark Alliance's answer is to lobby the European Commission into ensuring that all fished sharks are brought to the shore intact and unfinned and that no special permits are issued to allowing finning as has been known in Spain, Portugal, Britain, Germany and Lithuania. Japan does purport to abide by whatever finning regulations exist in other parts of the world where they fish, for example the North, Central and South Atlantic, but the bans in these areas are based on the European framework and, as such, are heralded as being far too lenient. With such a sought-after product as shark fin, the huge and growing demand for the delicacy in Asian cuisine - particularly in the increasingly consumerist China - means that not only will there never be enough shark fins to satisfy demand but that shark populations are rapidly decreasing. – Kyodo News News: Chinese River said to be Ravaged BEIJING -- The estuary of southern China's Pearl river has been ravaged by worsening pollution, causing sea waters off Hong Kong to deteriorate steadily in recent years, state press said Friday."In the Pearl river estuary, the ecology system has been destroyed and cannot be rectified in the short term," the China Daily said, citing a recent report by the Guangdong provincial oceanic and fishery administration. About 8.3 billion tons of sewage from 82 sources were discharged into the ocean off the coast of Guangdong last year, up 60% from five years ago, the report said. Pollutants such as inorganic nitrogen, phosphate and petroleum were boosting the number of harmful "red tides," or algae blooms, that suck the oxygen out of the water and leave coastal zones of dead fish and other species, it said. "It's an inevitable result of economic growth," the paper quoted a researcher surnamed Zhang at the Guangdong Ocean University as saying. "Local governments have always pursued economic growth at the expense of the environment, no matter if it is land or sea." Pollutants harming fisheries as well as water used for drinking and irrigation included lead, copper, cadmium, mercury and arsenic, it said. Waters around 13 coastal cities along the Pearl river estuary were categorized as "seriously polluted," it added. Guangdong province, which borders the former British colony of Hong Kong, has been traditionally known as China's "land of rice and fish." But following 25 years of booming economic growth, the province has become the factory floor of the nation's export-oriented economy, with thousands of plants filling the once fertile Pearl river delta. - Agence France Presse Legislative Watch: Surcharge on Licenses to Help Protect Rockfish OLYMPIA -- Some recreational and commercial anglers will soon pay a new surcharge to help protect dwindling rockfish populations.House Bill 1476, signed into law last week, gives the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife the authority to levy the surcharge to support additional research on rockfish populations off the Washington coast and in Puget Sound. There will be a 50-cent surcharge on three types of recreational fishing licenses and a $35 surcharge on certain commercial and charter boat licenses. The surcharge is expected to generate about $200,000 a year. The recreational licenses that will carry the surcharge are the combination, saltwater and temporary licenses. Surcharges will affect fishing licenses sold after May 31. Those additional revenues will be used to expand abundance surveys, including the use of remote-controlled vehicles to monitor rockfish that are difficult to access with other survey methods, said Phil Anderson, special assistant for intergovernmental resource management. Since 1997, when the National Marine Fisheries Service declared seven species of Pacific coast rockfish “overfished,” fishery managers have adopted a growing array of fishing restrictions to protect depleted stocks, Anderson said. Those regulations have affected fisheries for halibut, lingcod and other marine fish, because rockfish are sometimes incidentally caught while fishing for those species. The department will be able to expand its research and monitoring of rockfish populations beginning in 2008, Anderson said. - The (Tacoma) News Tribune Halibut Excluders on Cod Trawls seem to Work JUNEAU -- A recent test of a halibut excluder device on trawl nets fishing for Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska showed significant reductions of halibut bycatch.The test was coordinated by the Marine Conservation Alliance Foundation in conjunction with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "This shows what happens when fishermen, scientists, and industry put their heads together to tackle even the most difficult problems," said John Gauvin, the alliance's cooperative research coordinator. "We produced a practical device that reduces halibut bycatch in the Gulf trawl fishery by over 50%. "The test shows that the device also reduced the catch of cod by 20-30%, but from our preliminary look at the cod size data, the cod that are escaping are mostly smaller fish that are less valuable in the market and best returned to the sea." Gauvin said the results are considered preliminary and more data analysis is scheduled. The need for such a device was apparent because of an increase in halibut bycatch, resulting in premature closures for the fall trawl fishery in recent years. – UPI News Brief: Florida Man Charged with Shipping Contaminated Seafood A Boynton Beach businessman knew the seafood products he had shipped to retailers from his Lantana office in 2003 were contaminated but didn't tell customers or ask for a recall, the U.S. Attorney's Office said today.Timothy DeLong, president of Atlantis Foods Inc., also sold misbranded products, claiming a fish spread contained rainbow trout when it was made with tuna, according to information filed in federal court. DeLong was charged in federal court today with defrauding customers and selling misbranded food. Federal investigators learned that DeLong shipped orders of seafood spreads and chicken salad in 2003 without testing them for contaminants, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. And after he learned that shipments of lobster dip, chicken salad, salmon cream cheese and crab stuffing were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes - a dangerous bacteria that can cause severe gastrointestinal infection and has proven fatal in babies and the elderly - he didn't warn his customers, investigators said. If convicted, DeLong faces up to 20 years in prison and fines of $250,000. A representative of Atlantis Foods, headquartered at 420 Whitney Ave. in Lantana, couldn't immediately be reached for comment. - Palm Beach Post News in Depth: Moveable Feast Part 1 LONDON – Supermarkets and food producers are taking their products on huge globetrotting journeys, despite pledging to cut their carbon emissions.The Sunday Times has found that home-grown products are being transported thousands of miles overseas for processing before being put on sale back in Britain. Scottish prawns are being hand-shelled in China, Atlantic haddock caught off Scotland is being prepared in Poland and Welsh cockles are being sent to Holland to be put in jars before going on sale in Britain. Meanwhile, products grown overseas are taking circuitous routes to Britain. African-grown coffee is being packed 3,500 miles away in India, Canadian prawns are processed in Iceland, and Bolivian nuts are being packed in Italy. While ethical consumers have long opted for organic and fair trade products, there is now an increasing focus on cutting “food miles,” which generate unnecessary carbon emissions, contributing to global warming. David Miliband, the environment secretary, has said he believes environmental labeling will in future be routinely available on products, along with nutritional information. Dawnfresh, a Scottish seafood company that supplies supermarkets and other large retailers, cut 70 jobs last year after deciding to ship its scampi more than 5,000 miles to China to be shelled by hand, then shipped back to the River Clyde in Scotland and breaded for sale in Britain. The company said it was forced to make the move by commercial pressures. “This seems a bizarre thing to do but the reality is that the numbers don’t stack up any other way,” said Andrew Stapley, a director. “Sadly, it’s cheaper to process overseas than in the UK and companies like us are having to do this to remain competitive.” Haddock is one of the fish most commonly caught by British trawlers, but Tesco sends its Atlantic haddock for processing to Poland where labor costs are lower. It is then driven more than 850 miles to Tesco’s depot in Daventry, Northamptonshire. Organic and fair trade producers are also guilty of notching up excess food miles by sending their goods from country to country. Traidcraft coffee, sold at Sainsbury’s, is made from beans grown in Bukoba, Tanzania. It is not just fair trade coffee that is sent from country to country. Instead of directly importing coffee beans from Costa Rica for their instant coffee, Sainsbury’s and Tesco first send them to Germany. The final product then undergoes another 500-mile lorry journey to get to Britain. Similarly, French-grown walnuts sold in Waitrose are sent to Naples to be packed. The retailer’s Brazil nuts from South America are also transported to Italy before being sent to Britain. Inadequate labeling means it is impossible for a consumer to calculate the food miles of many products. Much of Britain’s canned tuna is processed in Thailand and the Seychelles, but the catches come from several countries, including France, which are not usually disclosed. Caroline Lucas, the Green party MEP, said: “Ultimately, the price is paid by all of us in the shape of higher greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and congestion, and food that is both less tasty and less healthy.” The industrialisation of the food chain means even small firms are being forced to ship their produce abroad for processing. Pilchard fillets, produced by the Pilchard Works in Cornwall, are sent on the overnight ferry to France because there is no suitable processing plant in England. The pilchards are canned in Douarnenez in Brittany, then returned to Cornwall. A 2005 study by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimated that domestic and international food transport for the UK market produces more than 19m tons of carbon dioxide and costs more than £9 billion a year in environmental, economic and social terms. – Times of London Moveable Feast Part 2: California Spiny Lobsters Get Around SAN DIEGO -- California spiny lobsters in the Point Loma kelp bed in San Diego move anywhere from 50 meters to 1 kilometer every night scavenging for food. By morning, many return to a home area, which is about 100 square meters.These are two main findings of a California Sea Grant/California Department of Fish and Game tagging study led by San Diego State University biology professor Kevin Hovel and Cal State Long Beach University biology professor Chris Lowe. "The art of lobster fishing is deciding where and when to set traps," said Charlie Graham, a commercial fisherman in Santa Barbara. "The research tells me I can be happy setting my traps a little farther from the beach and letting them (the lobsters) come to me. I don't have to risk losing a trap by putting it near the surf grass." Hovel's findings are based on two seasons of tagging and tracking data and on a series of dive surveys that let the scientists correlate lobster movement patterns with specific environmental features. "The take-home message is that lobsters move a lot," Hovel said. "We also showed lobsters move among habitats more than expected," Hovel said. Lobsters' journeys from kelp forest to surf grass or vice versa are very often beneath understory algae. Another discovery has been that spiny lobsters do not "home" to specific shelters – a special rock crevice, ledge or rock pile, for example. Instead they seem to have fidelity to a particular area, usually about 100 square meters with many sheltering areas in it. The results of the study can help in stock assessment and in identifying habitat areas that are critical for sustaining a lobster fishery, Hovel said. – San Diego State University News: Eating Fish Reduces Risk of Macular Degeneration BETHESDA, Md., Omega-3 fatty acids and higher fish consumption may reduce the risk of advanced age-related macular degeneration, according to U.S. study.The Age-Related Eye Disease Study Research Group assessed 4,519 individuals who were between 60 and 80 when they enrolled in the program between 1992 and 1998. Photographs were taken of their retinas to determine if they had age-related macular degeneration, and they also completed a food frequency questionnaire. Dietary total omega-3 intake was inversely associated with neovascular age-related macular degeneration, as was docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, a fatty acid that previous evidence suggests affects the retina, according to the study published in the Archives of Ophthalmology. Eating more than two medium — 4-ounce — servings of fish per week or more than one medium serving of broiled or baked fish was associated with the lowest risk of advanced age-related macular degeneration. – UPI Research News: China’s Seafood Exports Unsafe As the world's largest producer and exporter of fish and fish products, China may need to more closely monitor shellfish contaminant levels, because contaminants are finding their way into seafood.A new study found samples from markets that contained concentrations of contaminants high enough to pose threats to human health. The study is published in the latest issue of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Organochlorine pesticides such as DDT can accumulate in top predators, including humans. Though these pesticides were officially banned in 1983, China had been using them for decades prior to the ban. Twenty-five years later, there is evidence that new sources, particularly of DDT, may be present and contaminating seafood. The current study focused on seafood from markets in 11 coastal cities in Guangdong Province. The last two decades have witnessed explosive economic growth in that province. Rapid industrialization, urbanization, and conversion of agricultural lands to commercial use have accelerated the environmental deterioration in this region. Samples of shrimps, crabs, and mollusks were analyzed for 21 organochlorine pesticides. Of those, DDT and HCH (hexachlorocyclohexane) were detected most frequently and measured at the highest concentrations. These highest concentrations were observed in mollusks, specifically oysters, mussels, and squid. Concentrations of DDT in some of this seafood were high enough to pose human health threats. Other organochlorine pesticides present were at concentrations high enough to pose human cancer risks. The study's researchers said further research was urgently required to identify the new sources of organochlorine pesticide contamination, so the food safety issues could be dealt with. Human health risk assessments are required to determine potential risks from local and overseas consumption and potential limits that should be imposed on such consumption. China exports 3.2 million metric tons of seafood products, which is 10% of the global export volume. Exports primarily go to Japan, Korea, Canada, the United States, and the European Union. - Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry press release Fish-flation The Seattle Post-Intelligencer went shopping for Copper River salmon at Pike Place Market.They found a nice Chinook, weighing 45 pounds at only $26.67 a pound, or only $1,200! News: Taiwan to Ban Whale Shark Fishing Taipei, Taiwan — Taiwan will ban the harvest and sale of whale sharks beginning in 2008, a decision that could have repercussions at the Georgia Aquarium and other facilities where the world's largest fish are displayed."From the beginning of next year there will be a total ban on catching and selling whale sharks and whale shark meat," Lan Wei-tern, a spokesman for Taiwan's Fisheries Agency, said Monday. The ban strikes whale shark from Taiwanese grocery shelves and menus, and at other Asian markets where whale shark meat from Taiwan is consumed. The ban also would halt Taiwan's export of whale sharks to aquariums. The Georgia Aquarium, the world's largest aquarium, has three whale sharks from Taiwan, a major supplier of whale sharks. It is negotiating to get two more this summer from the Taiwanese government, before the ban takes effect. The aquarium had four whale sharks until January, when a male, Ralph, died. A necropsy showed the fish died of peritonitis, an inflammation of the abdomen. He also had stomach perforations, possibly caused by force-feeding through a PVC pipe. Taiwanese officials say they want to know more about Ralph's death before approving the export of two more. Jeff Swanagan, president and executive director of the Georgia Aquarium, said Taiwan made the right decision to stop whale shark trade. The ban recognizes "world opinion" as well as domestic concerns about the world's largest fish, said Chu Yung-cheng, another fisheries department spokesman. "Many Taiwanese have developed a sense of environmental protection," Chu said. Rhincodon typus, the whale shark, is a mysterious animal —no one knows how far whale sharks migrate, their life expectancy, or how many exist in the wild. Shark-watchers at the Ningaloo Reef Marine Park in Australia, for example, said they've seen "one of two" whale sharks daily this year; in previous years, they cataloged six or seven every day. The big fish are "iconic species," said Jason Holmberg, an Oregon researcher who has studied whale sharks in Australia and the Honduras. "They are gentle giants, the 'safe' shark," said Holmberg, who cheered Taiwan's decision. - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution News: Higher Canadian Dollar OTTAWA – The Canadian dollar held above the 92-cent U.S. level on Tuesday as it traded in territory it hasn't seen since early October 1977.The higher Canadian dollar means more expensive exports into the U.S., which presumably reduces sales. In global currency markets, the loonie was at 92.17 cents US at 9 a.m. ET. In earlier trading, it went as high as 92.34 cents U.S. Amid thin trading on Monday, the dollar broke through the 92-cent U.S. barrier for the first time in 30 years. The loonie has gained more than 50% since its record low of 61.79 cents U.S. in early 2002. Economists say the main reason for the loonie's recent strength has to do with the Bank of Canada and expectations that the central bank will be raising interest rates. A strong retail sales report last Friday was the most recent piece of Canadian economic data to highlight that the central bank may need to raise rates as early as this summer. Other reasons for the dollar's strength include persistently high commodity prices, the spate of takeovers of Canadian companies by foreign groups and an American dollar that is weakening against many foreign currencies. In addition, monthly inflation figures showed the core rate of inflation, which excludes the most volatile items, rose to 2.5% in April. That's the highest in more than four years. The Bank of Canada's next decision on interest rates is slated for May 29. The overnight rate (what banks charge each other for overnight loans) has been steady at 4.25% since May 2006. – CBC News: Japanese Eat Less Fish, More Meat TOKYO - Japan's household consumption of seafood may be surpassed by meat consumption in the near future due partly to rising fish prices amid strong demand in China and other countries and a growing taste for easy-to-cook meat, according to a government report released Tuesday.Japan should put the brake on declining seafood consumption by taking measures to diversify sales networks and expand catches to stabilize prices, said the fisheries white paper for fiscal 2006 through March. There is a potential demand for seafood, given that health-conscious consumers tend to prefer fish to meat, the report noted. Citing a Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications survey, the white paper said the annual per-capita volume of seafood purchased in Japan came to slightly less than 13 kilograms in 2005, marginally topping that of meat. Seafood purchases have exhibited a downward trend since registering a per-capita total of 16 kg in 1965. Meat purchases have been at more than 12 kg since the mid-1980s, compared with 6 kg in 1965, it said. The white paper said children are getting fewer opportunities to eat seafood. Busy parents do not want to prepare and cook fish and wash up afterward because of the time factor, it said. Based on a survey by the state-backed Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Finance Corp., the report said 70% of housewives in their 30s do not fillet fish and 10% do not grill it. In China, Europe and the United States, meanwhile, seafood consumption is increasing amid growing interest in fitness and health, leading to higher seafood prices on global markets and reduced purchases by Japanese importers, the white paper pointed out. Against this backdrop, Japan's share of global consumption of fish such as Norwegian salmon, U.S. red salmon and cod has fallen, it said. – Kyodo News Research News: Contraceptives May Decimate Fisheries ATORONTO -- The persistent discharge of even small concentrations of female sex hormones into lakes and rivers can completely decimate wild fish populations, according to a new study by Canadian biologists.The study, released Monday by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, found minnow populations in an experimental lake in northwestern Ontario began to collapse after prolonged exposure to small amounts of synthetic estrogen, similar to that found in birth control pills. The study found male fish, including larger species like trout and suckers that have longer lifespans and feed on minnows, began producing egg proteins and that early stage eggs were even found in the testes of some of the fish. The hormones also impacted the potency of male sperm, while female fish were found to produce more egg proteins, said researcher Karen Kidd. "We knew male fish were becoming feminized because of the estrogens that are in sewage effluent," said Kidd, noting it's a phenomenon that's turned up in earlier studies. The seven-year study involved adding five to six nanograms of estrogen per trillion liters of water - the equivalent of a few grains of sand in an Olympic size swimming pool - and studying the effect on the fish population. Since estrogen is a chemical that will degrade within weeks of entering lakes and rivers, compared to stronger pollutants that can linger for decades, Kidd said fish populations will generally recover once the hormone is removed. Those with already limited lifespans like minnows, however, face more dire consequences with even limited exposure, she said. "The answer is certainly not in reducing the use of birth control pills, it's making sure our wastewaters are treated effectively," Kidd said, noting water treatment is a municipal responsibility that varies widely across the country. "We're always putting these effluents into our rivers, so fish are always getting exposed even though the compounds are not persistent." While secondary wastewater treatment can get rid up to 95 per cent of the estrogens released by sewage plants, Kidd said a lot of waste receives only primary treatment or in some cases none at all. John Steele, a spokesman with Ontario's environment ministry, said wastewater treatment facilities are required to abide by certain provincial, and to some extent, federal requirements but it's ultimately municipalities that decide what's permitted into sewers. – Canadian Press News: Questionable Food Outlets to be Outed Online New South Wales (Australia) consumers will now be able to find out if their local restaurant or takeaway has been convicted over a pest problem or a dirty kitchen, in a move long sought by the public.NSW Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald says the NSW Food Authority has the right, under the Food Act, to publish notification on any outlet which has been convicted of an offense under the act. “The good news is that the authority will start doing that with new prosecutions within the next two months,” he said. “The majority of food outlets in NSW are doing the right thing and they are to be applauded. “Those few rogue traders who think they can rip people off or who put the health of customers at risk deserve to be named.” Similar systems already operate in the United States and Britain while in Sydney, Woollahra and Blacktown councils have taken steps to publicly identify outlets in breach of food safety standards, Fairfax reported today. Macdonald said $88,500 in fines had been imposed on food outlets in the past 12 months, with costs of $141,000 awarded. In the past six months, the authority had finalised 12 prosecutions, he said. “For instance, four charges were brought against the proprietor of a Sydney retail fish shop owner for the false description of seafood,” he said. “The proprietor was ordered to pay a total fine of $15,375 and to pay the authority's costs of $4,985.” Information on breaches of food safety standards will be available on the NSW Food Authority website. – The Australian News Brief: Lobster Catch Falling around Prince Edward Island BEDEQUE, P.E.I. - Lobster fishers in Prince Edward Island are wondering where all the lobster have gone.Craig Avery, the Bedeque-based president of the Western Gulf Fishermen's Association, says catches are falling in the spring lobster fishery by up to 30% in many areas. So far, the season has been a disappointment for many of the fishery's 630 or so fishermen. And Avery says prices don't reflect the scarcity of lobsters, ranging from $5 to $6 a pound. – Toronto Star Review: Critic Likes Wild Salmon (NYC restaurant) NEW YORK – More than any dish I can think of, salmon is useless to restaurant critics. It’s a stolid, predictable fish that chefs tend to prepare in stolid, predictable ways.Bred on vast seafood farms, like drug-addled chickens, the formerly noble salmon rarely tastes great these days, and it rarely tastes bad. “The Cheerios of restaurant food,” one of my discerning fish- aesthete friends calls it. So leave it to Jeffrey Chodorow, the tireless impresario of Chinese food (China Grill), Cuban food (Asia de Cuba), Brazilian food (the defunct Caviar and Banana), and, most recently, Kobe beef (Kobe Club), to imbue this tired, overstretched fish with a dose of big-city glamour. The name of his newest restaurant is Wild Salmon, and the venue is Chodorow’s grandest stage of all, a majestic glass-and-metal structure on Third Avenue, in midtown, which once housed an insurance company. More recently, the space has been home to two failed Chodorow productions: an Italian joint featuring the franchise-happy chef Todd English, and a doomed, Titanic-size steak parlor called Tuscan Steak. – New York Magazine Brief: Seafood Shortage Ominous in Asia With Asia's extensive coastlines and poor populations, seafood is a staple that provides up to 70% of animal protein in the diet.But the tide is turning as fish stocks in Asia have declined by 70% in the past 25 years, says Stephen Hall, head of WorldFish, a non-profit research body based in northern Malaysia. – New Zealand Herald News: Once a Fishing Town, Tiny Blaine now Developers’ Dream BLAINE, Wash. -- The Peninsula’s tiny neighbor to the south is poised to grow by 50% in the next two decades.Developers this week submitted a proposal to the City of Blaine for more than 1,000 homes and 48,000 square feet of commercial space, the largest single residential development in the city’s history. “I think they delivered it in a truck,” Blaine city manager Gary Tomsic said the of the application, which filled several binders. Ken Shorr and former Bellingham Mayor Ken Hertz want to build a mix of townhouses, cottages and detached single-family homes on 450 acres – mostly forest and wetlands – along the Canada-U.S. border. City planners and developers have been working on the application for last the two years. The document will be reviewed by staff, residents, and the Blaine council over the next year. “It is the talk of the town, but only for those who didn’t already know about it,” Tomsic said. If approved, the project will boost the city’s population from 5,000 to 7,500 over the next 20 years. Pioneers settled in Blaine in the mid-1800s, using it as a seaport for fishing and logging industries, and as a home base for prospectors of B.C.’s gold fields. At its peak, the city was home to 10,000 people. Planners are concerned about how the project, called Grandis Pond, will affect traffic in Blaine, Tomsic said, adding he doesn’t expect the project will increase cross-border congestion. Developers are also working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection staff to address security matters, since the development will sit on the border, Tomsic said. The commercial aspect of the plan includes grocery stores and a gas station. The proposal also includes green areas and several kilometers of trails. Several residents living on acreages in east Blaine aren’t happy about the project. “Some of them are not real excited about seeing this kind of density,” Tomsic said. – Peace Arch News News: The Scoop on Sushi—From Sea to Table DALLAS – Hey, sushi enthusiasts (and that includes you, Tony and Carmela Soprano): Ever wonder about the origins of those raw tuna slices you’ve taken to craving at the local Japanese restaurant?Probably not, posits Sasha Issenberg in The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy. In an era where menus often read like manifestos to pedigreed ingredients, Issenberg notes “sushi, however, arrives in front of customers with virtual anonymity, accompanied by none of the where-when-how provenance now afforded to a humble roasted chicken.” Issenberg describes the hardworking sushi chef as: “a charismatic frontman for an invisible world. Behind him is a web of buyers and sellers, producers and distributors, agents, brokers and dealers that extend from everywhere there is a net that needs to be emptied to anyplace there is a plate that can be filled.” With those initial words, Issenberg preps readers for a clear, engaging account of the business behind one of the world’s most popular foods. The Sushi Economy delves into the global seafood commerce that has developed over 30 years to accommodate the ever-growing demands for high-quality raw fish. Each chapter homes in on real-life characters whose occupations form the links that stretch from the sea to the supper table. It becomes quickly evident, though, that the star of this tale is tuna, the “trophy fish most demanded by diners.” Many of these fish tales illustrate hardscrabble lives: Cargo haulers in the early ‘70s who struggled with how to quickly transport newly valued Canadian tuna to Japan; tuna merchants in Tokyo at Tsukiji, the world’s largest fish market, who barter daily for the most-prized specimens; New England fishermen who learned to stake a monetary claim to the fish they send to market, only to face a dwindling supply of tuna in the ocean. These somber narratives are offset by the book’s middle section, which focuses on the rise of America’s sushi culture and the colorful chefs behind it. It was the Southern California lifestyle—“open-mindedness toward foreign cuisine, health consciousness, an aestheticization of natural foods, and a belief in the perfectibility of the human physique through diet”—mixed with Los Angeles’ Japanese community that started the proliferation of sushi restaurants. And no chef better embodies the explosion of sushi’s popularity than Nobu Matsuhisa, whose eponymous restaurants helped him become the reigning warlord of Japanese cuisine. For restaurant-world gossip hounds, this is the book’s most satisfying chapter: It recounts the early life of Matsuhisa as a young cook with wanderlust who finds success in Los Angeles. Partnered with Robert De Niro, he is now the figurehead of a globe-spanning chain of high-end restaurants who, in conversation, name-drops the likes of Mark Wahlberg, Celine Dion and Bill Clinton. Whatever political, economic and cultural insights the book offers, each page seems to resonate with a bottom line missive: Those rectangular slabs of ruby tuna served in sushi bars come with a lot more history than most of us suspect. – Dallas Morning News Consumer News in Depth: What is Sustainable? Monterey, Calif. -- With all the talk about "sustainable" agriculture, sustainable fishing and sustainable eating, it was remarkable how little agreement there was last week at Monterey Bay Aquarium's 2nd annual Sustainable Foods Institute about what sustainable actually means.The daylong symposium gathered 50 food writers and assorted food retailers, farmers, academicians and scientists to discuss the state of the world's increasingly fragile food system, both terrestrial and aquatic. The goal was to increase awareness of the need for a sustainable food supply. It sounds simple, but everyone came with his own definition of "sustainable." Some participants labeled any move toward a more efficient use of resources as sustainable, while others said they believed that nothing short of complete energy self-sufficiency fits the bill. Most people held opinions that fell somewhere in between those extremes. Undoubtedly, the most effective program designed to promote the fuzzy concept is the aquarium's own Seafood Watch Program. The simple pocket guide, also available online, lists which fish are best choices, which are acceptable alternatives, and which should be avoided. A separate, more detailed guide helps chefs connect with fisheries and fishermen who follow good fishing practices. Yet no other programs to help consumers find "sustainable" food were promoted. The point, however, wasn't to parse words but to inspire discussion. Startling information, such as the fact that 90% of the world's large predatory fish have vanished due to over-fishing, shared the stage with standard environmental stump speeches on buying organic, buying local, buying less. Samuel Fromartz, author of "Organic, Inc.," led a panel on the challenges big corporations face when they embrace organics, and New York University nutritionist and food studies professor Marion Nestle gave a talk about threats to food safety. Dan McGovern, publisher of Sustainable Food News, led a discussion of "food miles," a calculation of the environmental cost of transporting food long distances. Los Angeles Times environmental writer Ken Weiss led a discussion of sustainable seafood. "Food is the new social movement," Nestle said. Health concerns and a newfound appreciation for quality have politicized dinner. "It's grass-roots democracy," she said. "The more the public is educated, the better they will be able to make good choices." Organic practices are part of the sustainable ideal, according to many of the speakers. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has started to stock organic produce. Their customers haven't demanded organics, said Peter Redmond, a Wal-Mart vice president and seafood buyer. But he believes they will. The company is also instituting its own version of a sustainable seafood program. For instance, Wal-Mart buys 50 million pounds of shrimp per year, 75% from shrimp farms in Thailand, Redmond said. For 2 cents more per pound than he has been paying he can set standards for how Wal-Mart's Thai shrimp suppliers operate their farms as well as spot-check to make sure they follow those standards. None of the shrimp farms in Thailand, however, meet the aquarium's Seafood Watch Program's standards of sustainability. For food service provider Fedele R. Bauccio, chief executive of Bon Appétit Management Co., sustainability means following the aquarium's Seafood Watch guidelines. He also insists on free-range poultry and seasonal produce and gives the chefs at the 400 institutions served by his company a free hand to develop their own menus and work directly with local farmers. But it's still a work in progress, he pointed out as he picked up a bottle of San Pellegrino water his company was serving at the symposium. Considering the food miles issue, he said he'd stop importing water from Europe as well. Organic produce that has to be shipped in or local conventionally grown produce: Which is better? McGovern of Sustainable Food News said local trumps everything. "We know that we have a more socially just, economically secure and culturally viable system when we move to a locally based food supply," he said. But Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation, said "Organic is the platform. Other eco-labels are valid but not enforceable. There are 400 definitions for sustainable." Certainly "sustainability fraud" is occurring, said Thomas Tomich, director of UC Davis' Agricultural Sustainability Institute. "I want there to be science-based standards for 'sustainable.' If we don't move quickly to give it a concrete basis, people are going to become disillusioned." "Sustainability is not something we can accomplish and be done with it. It is a matter of conscience, a moral commitment to a way to live," Kirschenmann told the group. Without question, the Earth's energy supply will dwindle, water resources will shift and the climate will change. "If we are serious about sustainability," he said, "we've got to think about it in [the context of] this future." For peach farmer Masumoto, the ultimate definition of sustainability may rest with his daughter, Nikiko, who graduated from UC Berkeley last week. He considers his organic farm to be sustainable because it is in balance with nature as well as being economically balanced. Now Nikiko wants to join him on the peach farm, which means it must grow. "It opens up all sorts of possibilities," he said. "She is young and naive. That is what you need to be creative, to find new solutions, to find a new sustainable balance." - LA Times News in Depth: Fishing Alters the Traits of Codfish BERLIN -- Codfish have rapidly changed in response to pressures from the fishing industry, providing a clear example of the ways in which human activities are forcing other species to evolve and adapt at unexpected speed to new living conditions.An example of this rapid evolution is the new sexual behavior of codfish, said Ulf Dieckmann, an Austrian biologist who conducts evolution and ecology-related research at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, near Vienna. Until some decades ago, most codfish reached sexual maturity at the age of 10, and only when they measured at least one meter long. Now, codfish reach sexual maturity at the age of six, when they measure only 65 centimeters, Dieckmann said. "Some fish species have the capability to adapt to modern living conditions within a very short period of time," Dieckmann said. "Given that large-scale fishery hunts especially the larger and older [codfish] exemplars, the survival of the species rests upon the younger animals." "The Industrial fishery has decimated codfish, and one consequence of this is that there is more food for less fish in the seas," he said. "That's why the younger fish exemplars are growing more quickly, and reach sexual maturity in earlier years." 'If a fish waits too long to procreate, it might be too late, either because the fish has been caught in a net, or because younger competitors have already taken this function over,' Dieckmann added. Dieckmann's findings have been corroborated elsewhere. Biologist David Reznick of the University of California, observed a similar evolutionary process among guppies, a small, freshwater fish, often kept in aquariums. Reznick observed that if the oldest guppies are retired from a population, their sexual places are occupied by younger exemplars. Since guppies grow more quickly than codfish, the process of evolution occurs within five years, while the adaptation by codfish to a new age structure within the population can take as many as 40 years. Species' capability to adapt to new living conditions is a founding evolutionary element of life. In the absence of massive disturbances, such as a climate catastrophe, evolution takes place at a very slow pace. However, human-made changes in the climate and living conditions of species are accelerating this process of adaptation. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global warming is already decimating biodiversity all over the world, with some 150 species disappearing every day. In the report released by the body's second working group last April, the panel warns, "climate change is likely to affect forest expansion and migration, and exacerbate threats to biodiversity resulting from land use/cover change and population pressure in most of Asia. Marine and coastal ecosystems in Asia are likely to be affected by sea-level rise and temperature increases." Food insecurity and loss of livelihood are likely to be further exacerbated by the loss of cultivated land and nursery areas for fisheries by inundation and coastal erosion in low-lying areas of tropical Asia. Similar destruction of habitats for numerous species is to be observed in biological hot spots, such as the Amazons, and in Central Africa, the report added. - Global Information Network News: Commission Votes to Protect Big Lobster BANGOR, Me. -- Big lobsters in most American waters of the Atlantic Ocean can now rest easy. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has decided to protect them from being fished.Large lobsters have been protected in Maine for years, primarily because they are recognized for their biological importance to the fishery. One 5-pound female lobster can produce 14 times as many eggs as a 1-pounder, according to scientists, which is why Maine lobstermen are required to throw back any lobster whose torso measures more than 5 inches in length. Up until now, Maine has been the only state to adopt a maximum size limit for lobster. After years of hearing from Maine why all states should observe maximum size limits, the commission met earlier this month in Alexandria, Va., and voted to adopt varying maximum size limits for nearly all lobster fishing areas on the East Coast. The maximum sizes approved by the commission are 5 1/4 inches for areas close to shore between Nantucket Island and Cape Hatteras, N.C. Offshore, the maximum limit will start at 7 inches but will be reduced one-eighth of an inch each year for two years, ending up at 6 3/4 inches. The new limits are expected to go into effect June 30, 2008, according to a press release from ASMFC. Only a relatively small area due east of Cape Cod will have no maximum limit. In southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, annual lobster landings plummeted from 1999 to 2002, dropping from 8.2 million pounds to 3.8 million pounds. The crash followed overfishing, an oil spill and widespread shell disease, but scientists never pinpointed a cause, which made it difficult for regulators to find ways to counter the decline. In Maine, an estimated 66 million pounds of lobster worth $273 million were caught and landed in 2006, according to DMR statistics. Eighty percent of the East Coast lobster fishery is made up of Maine lobstermen. Maximum limits have become acceptable outside Maine for two reasons. The scientific argument is convincing and the premium price for large lobsters has been coming down. Because distributors take a big loss when large lobsters die in transit and have to be discarded, they are less willing to pay a premium for buying the large crustaceans. The two Canadian provinces closest to Maine waters - New Brunswick and Nova Scotia - do not have maximum size limits for lobster. Maine officials and fishermen have been unsuccessful in convincing their Canadian counterparts that large lobsters should be thrown back into the water. – Bangor Daily News News: Crawfish Bouncing Back from Katrina New Orleans - Michelle Chauncey, owner of The Crab Shack, a mainstay booth in the Westwego seafood lot for the past 15 years, felt the pinch from the post-Katrina crawfish shortage last year when she sold 30 sacks a day.There are plenty of the clawed crustaceans to go around today. Chauncey sells an average of about 50 sacks, or 1,500 pounds, of live crawfish a day on weekends. "I could have sold 50 sacks a day last year but we weren't getting as much crawfish as we are this year," Chauncey said. "This year, supply has not been a problem and there has been an abundance of crawfish enough where the price has decreased steadily about 10 cents a week." The crawfish season ends July 4. Its April-May peak features a bountiful supply and dropping prices. Live crawfish prices started at $2 per pound early in the season and have dropped to $1 a pound or below at some retailers. Wade Toups, owner of Sue's Seafood in the Westwego seafood lot, is selling live crawfish for 99 cents a pound. Prices did not dip below $1.15 a pound last year. The Louisiana State University Agricultural Center reports crawfish farm production turned the corner in 2006 when it increased 8% to 79.7 million pounds from 73.8 million produced in 2005. The gross farm value of Louisiana crawfish production jumped 135% to $95.7 million from the $40.6 million in 2005. Dr. Greg Lutz, a professor with the LSU Agricultural Center, said much of the turnaround in crawfish production can be attributed to farms rebounding from a decrease in rice production. "Rice and crawfish are often linked together," Lutz said. "When rice prices are favorable, there are not so many rice producers with an interest in producing crawfish on the same land and vice versa, if rice deteriorates, then crawfish becomes more opportunistic." Rice acreage in Louisiana declined 34% from 523,739 acres in 2005 to 347,199 acres in 2006. Rice was harvested by 1,181 producers in 2006, 202 fewer than in 2005, and the gross farm value of rice production dropped 19.5% from $225 million in 2005 to $181 million in 2006. Farmed crawfish production occupied almost 130,000 acres during the 2006 harvest season, up 10% from 2005. The $95.7-million gross farm value of crawfish made it the state's most valuable aquaculture crop last year. "Farmers have to make ends meet," Lutz said. "If the numbers don't work for these guys in rice production, then their acreage is put in crawfish production. What we're seeing again this season is crawfish availability is really good, and anybody who wants crawfish right now can buy it at a reasonable price." – New Orleans CityBusiness |