Monday, December 3, 2007PENSIVE
Business Toolbox: Crab I
Florida stone crab season in full swing
PUNTA GORDA, Fla. — This is the golden season for Jimmy Beall and other local crabbers. It’s Florida stone crab season.
Oct. 15 through May 15, Beall and others can harvest the golden yellow claws from the crabs — long viewed as a Florida seafood delicacy.
“Generally, in the beginning of the season, you can catch them (inshore),” Beall said. “But now, they’re offshore. They’re in 30 or 60 feet of water, anywhere from a mile or more offshore.”
Most of the year, Beall will scatter his wire traps for blue crabs in Charlotte Harbor and the Peace River. Unlike blue crabs that fare well in the salt- and freshwater mix of an estuarine system, the stone crab spawns in estuaries in the summer, then heads for the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic Ocean.
Stone crab traps differ significantly from the traps used for blue crabs.
The wire blue crab traps are designed to keep the crabs from swimming back out of the traps. Blue crabs are “swimming crabs,” a type of crab that has flattened back feet acting as paddles. Stone crabs are “crawling crabs,” so their traps are designed differently to keep them in once they enter the trap. The traps are also heavier, made out of plastic or wood, and resemble milk crates. Each trap weighs 60 pounds.
Stone crabs can be found in waters from the Carolinas south and around Florida and the Gulf of Mexico coast to Belize. Monroe and Collier counties see an abundance of stone crabs.
Two species of stone crab — the Florida stone crab and smaller Gulf stone crab found in northern Florida — interbreed regularly.
Anne McMillen-Jackson, an associate researcher with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, explained how stone crabs have “break zones” on their limbs that allow the crab to lose its claw or leg to a predator without losing its life.
“(A stone crab) has a membrane that closes up so it doesn’t bleed to death,” McMillen-Jackson said. “It’s a defense mechanism.”
The crab’s two different-sized claws serve two different functions. The larger claw, McMillen-Jackson said, allows the crab to crush mollusk shells, while the smaller claw is used to pinch tissue from its prey. When the large claws are taken, she said, the crabs remaining pincher claw will often grow into a “crusher” claws. – Charlotte Sun-Herald, Florida
Business Toolbox: Crab II
Northwest crabbers pulling pots, if they get out
CHARLESTON, Ore. – The Northwest Dungeness crab fleet is hitting the waters, trying to bring as much crab in as possible before the predicted extreme storm hits the south coast.
The Gloria vessel was the first to land their gear Saturday after the crabbing season officially started at midnight.
Captain Jeff Reeves says it was a rough night with poor conditions, but most crabbers want to get the most bang for their buck before this storm moves in.
"It's predicted to be one of the biggest weather events that I can recall. The crab gear will get moved around. Some of it may go completely away. We've seen pots in a significant weather event last year roll 50 miles up the coast."
In order to salvage their gear, crabbers hope to land most of it before the conditions get bad enough to sand in the pots.
Reeves brought in about a ton of crab and based on competitive pricing he's expecting to get around $2 a pound.
Crabbers seem to be positive about this season, and are hoping the quantity of crab keeps up with the quality.
Meanwhile, the oil-spill closure in and just outside San Francisco Bay was lifted, so most crab vessels in Northern California and the Northwest are now fishing.
Business Toolbox: Selling Wild
Company takes stand for sustainable seafood
Ten years ago, Henry and Lisa Lovejoy stood ankle-deep amid dead tuna in a Tokyo warehouse the size of a football field.
The tuna were headed to the dinner tables of Japan, and the warehouses would fill with fresh kill the next day. And the next. And the next. Some tuna were so young, they hadn't reproduced.
It was then that the couple, who ran a $20 million-a-year lobster export business in Boston, knew they had to stop doing what they were doing. "We thought, 'This industry has some serious environmental baggage,' " says Henry, 43. "We had a strong level of discomfort being part of an industry that wasn't managing its resources well."
Out of that sentiment came EcoFish, an 8-year-old company considered a pioneer in the market of "sustainable" seafood — a movement increasingly embraced by major seafood producers and retailers, including Wal-Mart.
EcoFish sells only seafood that is grown or caught in eco-friendly ways. That means the fish producers don't harm the environment and take no more fish out of the ocean than are born each year.
EcoFish, with $3 million in annual sales, is small fry in the $52 billion U.S. seafood industry. But it's living proof that seafood companies can make money without harming the environment, says Michael Sutton, director of the Center for the Future of the Oceans at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He sees EcoFish as a company that can pioneer an industry transformation.
"They're a drop in the ocean that creates a lot of ripples," says Sutton, who serves on EcoFish's volunteer advisory board.
Conservationists say the sustainability movement for seafood is happening just in time: About 75 percent of the world's wild fish stocks already are dubbed depleted or recovering from depletion by the United Nations. Some long-standing consumer favorites, including Atlantic cod and Chilean sea bass, are considered vulnerable to overfishing. Atlantic cod has been so heavily fished that the population is down to its last 10 percent, says Seafood Watch at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which warns consumers on seafood to avoid.
The Lovejoys first thought they'd abandon the seafood business because of environmental concerns. Then they decided to try to remake it.
Based in Dover, N.H., EcoFish handles a dozen fish species. The six-employee firm started by selling sustainably grown fish to restaurants. Today, 20 percent of revenue comes from restaurants and 80 percent from products sold to retailers.
They range from frozen shrimp to canned tuna to wild Alaskan salmon entrees. They're carried in about 3,000 U.S. stores, including natural food stores, Whole Foods (WFMI) supermarkets and Target Supercenters, (TGT) and they cost about 20% more than rival products. – USA Today
Business Toolbox: Your Supply
Northern shrimp season begins off New England
PORTLAND, Maine -- The northern shrimp season is under way for fishermen from Maine and elsewhere in New England.
The season, which began Saturday, is 152 days -- one day longer than last year. While shrimp stock remain above average this year, regulators have expressed concern about a possible decline in shrimp stocks that could curtail fishing in 2009.
Northern shrimp provide a small but valuable fishery to fishermen in New England, especially in Maine, where about 150 boats took part in last year's season. An additional 20 boats from New Hampshire and Massachusetts combined also participated. -- WMTW, Auburn, Maine
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Seafood helps improve your complexion
A diet high in fibre, fish, lean protein and matcha green tea, while low in blood sugar-spiking foods, can protect against acne, says New York naturopath Alan Logan, author of The Clear Skin Diet.
On the other hand, he says the typical teenager's diet which is often rich in doughnuts, pop and cheeseburgers, appears to raise the hormone levels that have long been linked to acne.
Logan says the Japanese are proof of his theory, pointing to a 1964 study that found their incidence of acne was half that in American cities.
"Today, after the introduction of a western diet, the rates in Japan are almost equal to ours," he said, adding important nutrients in an anti-acne diet include zinc, selenium, vitamin A and high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, "which have tremendous anti-inflammatory properties. We now know that inflammation is one of first things that happens in acne."
During a recent Victoria visit, the New York- and Toronto-trained naturopath, who is on the faculty of Harvard's Mind/Body Medical Institute, warned that his book and other recent studies are very controversial. "Dermatologists have long denied any connection between diet and acne."
But he nevertheless contends that sticking to a healthy diet -- and limiting things like corn, safflower, soy bean and sunflower oil that can lead to inflammation -- will help acne sufferers see significant results in two to three months, which is how long the cycle is from first acne lesion to a full flare-up.
Logan believes poor nutrition is not the only factor in acne. Other causes include sluggish digestion and elimination, which is why he also recommends fibre-rich foods, probiotics and lots of vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, kale, mustard greens, wasabi and watercress.
Good quality sleep is another positive weapon in the battle against acne flare-ups, since stress is a critical element.
Logan, who also lectures at Harvard's school of continuing medical education, recommends supplements such as a Genuine Health version called Perfect Skin, which he says promotes clear skin because it contains omega-3 fatty acid, natural antioxidants, zinc, vitamin E, selenium and green tea extract. – Victoria, B.C., Times Colonist
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Business Toolbox: Safe product
Rotten fish brings jail time
DILLINGHAM, Alaska – Three years ago, Jeremy Oliver swept into the summer fishing community of Ekuk to take over a newly vacated cannery, assuring dozens of families that he would be a reliable buyer and processor of their wild salmon.
But by mid-season, 400 tons of Bristol Bay sockeye had rotted so badly the state declared the area an environmental catastrophe. None of the fishermen or cannery workers were ever compensated for the loss.
Last week, a magistrate in Dillingham ordered Oliver to pay them a total of $50,000 in restitution and spend 40 days in jail for one misdemeanor for violating Alaska's Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
Officials with the company's defunct banker, Strategica Import-Export Financial Group LLC, of Florida, have already agreed to pay $187,000 and will share responsibility with Oliver for the latest fine, said assistant attorney general Dan Cheyette.
Smooth-talking and cocky, Oliver had little experience in the Alaska fishing industry when he helped form Washington-based Wild Alaskan Seafood Co. LLC in 2004, according to local fisherman and prosecutors.
He leased the processing plant in Ekuk, a Yup'ik Eskimo village on Alaska's southwest coast, and told fishermen he would renovate the facility and sell their catch to an Oregon-based company.
Oliver had persuaded Strategica to finance his plan to ship whole frozen salmon to out-of-state wholesalers, but did not have the refrigeration and freezer equipment to keep the fish remotely close to fresh.
Fishermen said they were suspicious of Oliver from the outset because he had did not have enough ice or water to keep their catch.
But the plant was the only fish buyer in the area and many took the risk of selling to him rather than go an entire season without fishing.
Oliver's venture ultimately cost about 70 fishermen and several dozen plant workers roughly $800,000, Cheyette said.
"I was a little dubious about his qualifications," said Pat O'Connor, who has fished the area for 52 years. "Supposedly he had all kinds of money behind him. I couldn't see where that was coming from, but we didn't have a choice if we wanted to fish. There's no other market."
O'Connor said the fishery provided about 75 percent of his household income that year. The loss forced him and his wife to cancel their annual bulk grocery order that included flour, canned vegetables and powdered milk. They lived off old supplies instead.
"We had a pretty tough winter that year," he said. "We burned wood instead of oil to heat the house and lived off the land as much as we could."
Tim Sands, an area biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said he also was suspicious of Oliver. Near the start of the season, he requested Alaska State Troopers to sit in as witnesses to a phone call in which he questioned Oliver's ability to process the fish.
"It could have been really bad and the fish could've gotten to market and damaged the reputation of Alaska seafood," Sands said. "I wanted to do all I could to prevent that."
State environmental officials eventually destroyed the spoiled fish, prosecutors said.
Oliver apologized in court to the several fishermen who came to his sentencing, saying he was "truly sorry," according to witnesses. His attorney was out of state and could not be reached for comment. Police at the Dillingham jail late Monday said they needed official permission before allowing Oliver to take a phone call.
Cheyette said he was pleased with the sentence. – Anchorage Daily News
Business Toolbox: Sustainability
Walking the walk
NEW YORK -- At Hook, a Washington, D.C., seafood restaurant, there's no Chilean sea bass, bluefin tuna or grouper on the menu. You can't order asparagus in the fall, or strawberries in winter.
But would you like to try the wahoo? Or the sablefish? Or the foot-long tiger shrimp? Or the celeriac-apple slaw?
Running a restaurant is hard. Running a restaurant that serves only sustainably caught seafood and locally-grown produce, and tries to educate its customers about the plight of the oceans -- well, that's an even bigger challenge.
"It can be difficult as a chef to explain to my guests why I don't have many of their favorite fish on the menu," says Barton Seaver, the chef of a D.C. eatery called Hook.
"But I will not serve it if it is not sustainable."
What's more, along with the check at Hook comes a surprise -- a guide to ocean seafood from the Blue Ocean Institute, a nonprofit group that rates fish species as red (avoid), yellow (be careful) or green (consume), based on their sustainability.
Seaver is a 28-year-old classically-trained chef, one of a small but growing breed of restaurateurs who promote the environment along with the daily specials on their menu. The most famous is Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif. (The capital of the sustainable food movement remains northern California, although foodie-favored cities like Portland, Oregon, and Seattle aren't far behind.)
A nonprofit group called the Chef's Collaborative has more than 1,000 active members, most of them chefs, who say they favor "products we know are better for the environment, our communities and the nation's tables."
Can chefs really help save the planet? "Chefs are the keeper of food culture in America," Seaver says. "People look to chefs to tell them what to eat."
There's some evidence that he's right. Nearly a decade ago, more than 700 U.S. chefs signed a pledge saying they would "Give Swordfish a Break," as part of a campaign led by conservation groups SeaWeb and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Swordfish became unfashionable, the government reduced catch quotas, lawsuits forced the closing of some nursery areas along the U.S. coast, and the stocks recovered, according to the Society for Conservation Biology.
Andy Sharpless, the chief executive of Oceana, an advocacy group dedicated to protecting the oceans, says restaurants like Hook "provide a really useful educational message on behalf of the oceans." But consumer behavior, by itself, can't protect fish stocks from being depleted. "Policy change is essential," he says.
Seaver doesn't disagree. He's planning to testify before the National Organic Standards Board, to oppose the idea of allowing farmed salmon -- which can have negative environmental impacts -- to be labeled as organic. He's active in the Slow Food Movement and works with a variety of NGOs, including Blue Ocean, Oceana and Earth Echo International.
The more, the merrier, Seaver says: "Being completely selfish, I want to see other people selling sustainable seafood. Because there's not going to be any seafood left if they don't." -- Fortune
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Fishing village economy takes hit in drought
APALACHICOLA — The little homes and oyster-shucking houses near the waterfront don't pretend to be elegant. A lot of them are tumbledown, with crunchy oyster shell driveways, cockeyed porches and walls that lean a bit in one direction or the other, testament to some long-ago hurricane blow.
The biggest building in town is the three-story courthouse. There's only one stoplight and not a single four-lane road in all of Florida's Franklin County.
You could take the entire population, 12,000, and fit it in one end of Atlanta's Georgia Dome, and the people might be overlooked.
Which is exactly how the leather-faced oystermen and shrimpers feel these days.
Not everybody in this Panhandle town is mad at Atlanta, where the drought and water shortage have prompted water managers to reduce the flow in the Apalachicola River, a broad, meandering stream with natural vistas so stunning they take your breath away.
But there's plenty of common-sense aggravation.
"We know they've got to have drinking water in Atlanta, and we don't want to talk harsh on them," said Keith Millender, whose family has dug oysters and netted shrimp for generations. "But tell them to stop filling up their swimming pools and washing their cars.
"We've got to earn a living, and they can sacrifice, too. If they can't get to their boats on Lake Lanier because their dock is standing dry, tell them to do what we do: Get a dinghy and paddle out."
People here are accustomed to Mother Nature's bringing crisis and disaster: years of bad harvests for no apparent reason, and hurricanes, floods and red tides that render the oysters unfit to eat.
But they carry on. All they know is work, the kind done with their hands.
Speculation is a waste of time and won't put food on the table.
"We were raised up here since we were knee-high to a grasshopper and we worked all the time, weekends and holidays," said Millender's cousin, Mike, who runs an Eastpoint fish house where a bumper sticker plastered on the aging cash register reads: "Love your oysterman." "We go through good years and bad, so I'm not scared. The oysters always come back. But we flat need some water."
Shrimp, clams, crab, grouper, redfish, flounder, mullet, trout and snapper all thrive here, drawn to the river and protected bay where larvae mature on the rich nutrients washed downstream.
Juveniles grow fast, hiding in the flats and marshes.
Now those marshes are drying out.
Salinity is as common a topic of conversation here as the weather, because salinity, the delicate mix of fresh and salt water, is one of the magic keys to the seafood cornucopia that is Apalachicola Bay.
Less fresh water means higher salinity, and too much salt is bad news for the critters the economy depends on. – Palm Beach Post, Florida
Business Toolbox: Your resource
Cape Cod folks warming to wind farm
CAPE COD – A Newton-based think tank has released the results of a survey that proponents of a Nantucket Sound wind farm say proves local support for the project.
"More and more citizens each day are saying yes to the Cape Wind project because it is in the right place at the right time," Barbara Hill, executive director of Clean Power Now, said after the results were announced during a teleconference yesterday. Clean Power Now favors Cape Wind Associates' proposal to build 130 wind turbines in the sound.
Some opponents of Cape Wind argue that Cape Wind could disrupt commercial fishing in Horseshoe shoal. But the proposed Cape Wind location is not in waters used any longer for significant commercial fishing and it may actually end up helping to restore recreational fishing. – Cape Cod Times
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Business Toolbox: New marketing concepts
They don't sell just lobster, they sell the experience
PORTLAND, Maine — Two brothers are selling more than just lobsters from their waterfront business. They're selling the lobstering experience -- and it doesn't come cheap.
For $2,995 a year, customers buy the rights to all the lobsters caught in a designated trap off the rocky Maine coast -- at least 40 crustaceans a season, probably more -- and have them shipped whenever and wherever they want.
It's a concept similar to farming co-ops where people lay down money up front in return for a share of a farm's harvest during the growing season.
John and Brendan Ready's customers know who's putting food on the table. Customers know the lobstermen, what their boats look like and where the traps are set. Daily updates are available on the Internet.
The Readys, owners of Ready Seafood on Hobson's Wharf, are selling the mystique of lobstering, where seasoned salts in foul-weather gear haul in lobsters from the ocean depths much the same way it's been done for more than a century. Lobstermen who work with the Readys benefit by getting free traps and a premium of 40 cents per pound for the lobsters caught in them.
Markets for the "Catch a Piece of Maine" program include businesses and well-heeled individuals with an interest in knowing where their food comes from.
"We've created a way to add more value to seafood," said John Ready. "This is our way of trying to hit a new market segment."
While it's relatively easy for people to meet farmers at farmers markets or co-ops, it's not as easy to meet the fishermen who supply the nation's seafood. So the Readys let their customers "meet" their lobstermen online, reading their biographies, looking at their boats and discovering their thoughts about their livelihoods.
One of those lobstermen, John Butler, writes that lobstering is a way of life for him.
"Where else can you see majestic whales, jumping bluefin tuna, seals and countless sea birds when you go to work? Fog, salt air, waves crashing over the bow, sea spray in your face," wrote Butler, skipper of the Sylena B.
That connection is important for consumers who want to know more about their food, said Dane Somer, executive director of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council.
"There's a person behind it, saying 'Yes, I'm harvesting these lobsters and doing it in a sustainable way, and here's where it comes from,'" Somer said.
Lobster is synonymous with Maine, where last year's harvest of 73 million pounds was valued at nearly $300 million. The catch in recent years is double and even triple what it was in decades past, forcing lobster dealers to find new markets for all that product. – Houston Chronicle
Business Toolbox: Dungeness crab I
Deadliest catch? Not in Alaska
This article also appeared in our Fish Wrap service.
ILWACO, Wash. – They head out to sea in pursuit of a crab's sweet meat. Months of sleep-deprived labor can pull in hundreds of thousands of dollars for a top-grossing vessel. Their death toll — 17 lives lost in the past seven years — makes this the most lethal Pacific harvest.
These are not the Bering Sea crabbers who gained fame on the Discovery Channel's reality series, Deadliest Catch, but the Dungeness-crab crews who toil in anonymity off the Washington and Oregon coasts.
Since 2000, their death rate has been 50 percent higher than that of Bering Sea crabbers and four times the rate of all U.S. fishermen, federal statistics show.
"We're the deadliest catch," says Mike Banks, the Oregon skipper of the 38-foot Alexa B, which on Saturday joined several hundred crabbers for the opening of the new Dungeness season off Oregon and part of Washington.
"We're fishing in the Pacific Ocean, where the storms blow 3,000 miles in from Japan."
These Northwest crabbers take pride in a fishery that still has room for the little guy, who can break into the harvest with far less capital than required to fish the Bering Sea. Most Northwest crab boats range in length from 30 to 80 feet, far smaller than most Bering Sea crab boats, which can reach more than 180 feet.
Both fleets face severe weather this time of year, when the crabs are at their prime.
Bering Sea squalls can coat gear and decks with freezing spray, making boats dangerously top-heavy. That's rare on Northwest waters, but the local fleet still gets rocked by storms. Saturday's opening came as forecasters warned of a monster storm capable of spinning out 40-foot seas and hurricane-force winds. Most boats were expected to stay in port.
The Northwest fleet also must navigate treacherous river sandbars to enter and exit ports. Last year, Oregon bars claimed seven commercial crabbers — three in February when the Catherine M capsized trying to cross the Tillamook Bar with a load of Dungeness crab.
Then on Dec. 16, the vessel Ash capsized off the mouth of the Rogue River. Four died.
"He was trying to get some income for the holidays and had just crossed the bar," said Cecil Ashdown, widow of 44-year-old skipper, Rob Ashdown. "Then the sneaker waves hit. The first one, they were able to ride out, and the second one flipped them over."
In the seven-year stretch ending last year, the Dungeness fleet suffered five capsizings that claimed 14 crew members, while three others died in separate incidents. Thirteen deaths happened in Oregon waters, four off the Washington coast.
Northwest crabbers say the fatalities reflect the intense competition, as small and large boats battle to grab as much crab as fast as possible. The danger grows with fatigue, or alcohol and drug abuse. This past January, a young Oregon skipper tested positive for methamphetamine after a disastrous bar crossing that killed one of his crew. – Seattle Times
Business Toolbox: Dungeness crab II
Here's what fishermen face for the crab you sell
EUREKA, Calif. – Reported offshore wind gusts of 60 mph and swells topping 24 feet put a crimp in the crab season Monday, but December’s first storm did surprisingly little damage on land as rains and winds tapered off Monday night.
The danger, said National Weather Service meteorologist Jeff Lawitsky, is a high surf warning.
“Big story (today) is big swell, big waves — 23 to 27 feet — even bigger than (Monday’s) in our forecast,” NWS warning coordinator meteorologist Troy Nicolini said.
“Our new motto: If you want to watch the beautiful waves, buy a $40 pair of binoculars and watch from afar or from your car, but definitely not on the jetties. Stay off the beaches.”
“We’ll probably go back out Wednesday afternoon, Thursday for sure,” said crab fisherman Paul Pellegrini, who hasn’t been out since Saturday.
“It cost $150 to put a crab pot out there and I have 530 of them in there. You do the math. The storm has us anxious to see what it will leave us. We all lose a few pots every year, but I’ve seen guys lose everything in a storm like this.”
Pellegrini said pots can move off with the surf or get buried in the mud so deep they need to be pumped out.
Larry Crabb said the North Coast Co-op in Eureka that he manages has enough crab to get to Wednesday.
Mark McCulloch of Mr. Fish seafood said he “had a bunch stashed for me in a guy’s hold, but it’s going fast.” His best advice: If you’re planning crab for Wednesday, get it today.. – Eureka (Calif.) Reporter
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Another grim report on the Chesapeake
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Increased pollution, worsening water clarity and a depressed crab population led to the Chesapeake Bay’s declining health this year, earning it a poor grade from environmental group Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The D rating from the foundation came as the 2010 deadline looms to clean up the Bay.
“It’s on life support, fighting for survival,” Chesapeake Bay Foundation President William Baker said of the Bay.
Baker called on the executive council of the Chesapeake Bay Program, which sets policies for restoring the Bay, to lay out specific benchmarks for reducing nitrogen pollution by 110 million pounds by 2010.
“We think there are clear actions that can be taken to reduce nitrogen,” he said. “We’d like to see them implemented and plans laid out.”
So far, only 18 percent of the 2010 goal has been reached, Baker said. – Baltimore Examiner
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Business Toolbox: Your resource
Fools' paradise: European Union
BRUSSELS – The European Union has no real idea of how many fish its national fleets catch each year and is failing to clamp down hard on vessels that exceed national quotas, the EU financial watchdog said on Tuesday.
The Court of Auditors said unreliable data on catches, weak inspections with no proper deterrent, as well as general fleet overcapacity were threatening fish stocks. For many species including cod, stocks had been hard hit by years of heavy exploitation.
"Catch data are neither complete nor reliable and the real level of catches is thus unknown," an ECA report said.
It criticized EU governments and the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, for not doing enough to enforce the rules and stop the overfishing -- a phenomenon that international scientists have warned the EU about for years.
"If this situation continues, it will bring grave consequences not only for the natural resource, but also for the future of the fishing industry and the areas associated with it," said the analysis of the EU's six major fishing countries: Britain, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. – Reuters
Business Toolbox: Which is the best?
Smoked salmon: The taste test
SAN FRANCISCO – Smoked salmon, gussied up or all by itself, is a staple at holiday parties - and at the morning-after breakfast table.
Last year at this time, Taster's Choice tried out farmed Atlantic salmon, the paler, creamier cousin of wild salmon.
This year, we evaluated smoked wild fish, sought out by consumers who have concerns about additives and heavy metals in farmed fish and environmental problems associated with salmon farming.
Local supermarkets carry 11 brands of wild smoked salmon packaged in sliced fillets. None are king, or Chinook, salmon, the species prized for its firm, flavor-packed flesh. Most were sockeye salmon, Chinook's leaner, redder-fleshed cousin, and two were coho. Both come from sustainable fisheries.
As with the Atlantic salmon, the results ranged from very good to fishy, mushy, salty disasters. Even among the top five, prices range to the same extremes, from $13.79 a pound up to $11.99 for 4 ounces.
Top honors went to Trader Joe's ($7.99 for 8 ounces), which the tasters liked for its "excellent balance of mild smoke and fish flavors." Texture was described as "firm but moist." A couple of the tasters found the fish a bit salty. Three would buy this salmon, and two might.
In second place was the Whole Foods Market store brand Whole Catch ($5.94 for 4 ounces), a "very smoky" and "very orange" fish. "Good salmon flavor" and "good texture" were among the comments. One would buy this brand, three might and one wouldn't.
Echo Falls ($6.99 for 4 ounces, Whole Foods) came in third. Its fans on the panel praised it's "lightly smoked" and "good, balanced" flavor. The texture, while "smooth," was also "too soft" or even "mushy." One would buy this salmon, one might and three wouldn't.
Tied for fourth were Blue Hill Bay ($11.99 for 4 ounces, Mollie Stone's) and the Costco store brand Kirkland ($13.79 a pound).
The Blue Hill Bay had a "nice smoke-salt balance" but a "dry" and "mushy" texture.
One taster would buy it and four would not.
The Kirkland, the least expensive of the salmons, was "neither too salty nor too fishy" with a "nice smooth flavor." But its texture was "dry" and "mushy."
Two would buy this salmon, one might and one wouldn't.
Smoked salmon (wild)
Most of the salmons tasted were wild sockeye; two were wild coho.
Trader Joe's 73
Whole Catch 63
Echo Falls 52
Blue Hill Bay 46
Kirkland 46
Costarella 45
Gerard & Dominique 41
(coho)
Safeway Select 39
Wildcatch 35
Ducktrap River (coho) 11
Andronico's 6
Panelists were Linda Anusasananan, food writer and consultant, San Mateo; John Carroll, cookbook author, San Francisco; Emily Luchetti, pastry chef, Farallon, San Francisco; Shelley Handler, consultant, San Francisco; and Roland Passot, chef-owner, La Folie and five Left Banks. All products are tasted blind; a perfect score would be 100. Prices listed are the lowest found, but products may be available at other stores. – San Francisco Chronicle
Business Toolbox: Swordfish
New Zealand stocks "plundered"
New Zealand's potentially lucrative swordfish stock has been plundered by two shadowy Spanish fishing trawlers flying Senegalese flags-of-convenience in international waters off the Kermadec Islands.
iplomatic efforts are underway to get the two boats, Vieirasa Cinco and Robaleira, formally listed with four others to be banned from the Pacific for illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing.
One of the four were caught by the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
A powerful Spanish industry lobby group is threatening to go to international courts to "claim our rights and demand compensation of the huge damages.”
Although in international waters, fish like tuna and swordfish come under control of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), which protects highly migratory fish stocks.
Listing would lead to the boats being banned in the vast WCPFC area which covers most of the Pacific, the main source of world tuna.
Pacific politicians and diplomats have long feared a flood of mainly European boats heading into the Pacific following the collapse of major Mediterranean and North Atlantic fish stocks. Mediterranean swordfish has been wiped out by driftnetting, leading to calls for consumer bans on it in Europe.. – Stuff.co, New Zealand
FridayDecember 7, 2007
Business Toolbox: Holiday marketing
Internet specialty food sales seeing growth
“Retailers are predicting another big holiday” season for online shopping. After spectacular growth over the past several years, on-line commerce has now become a regular part of the holiday shopping routine for a record number of Americans.
According to comScore Networks, which measures consumer behavior on the Internet, holiday online purchasing accounted for $24.6 billion in 2006, an increase of 26 percent over the previous year.
A category that has seen recent growth is gourmet food. According to a new study by FoodNavigator-USA.com, food gifts have skyrocketed in popularity, increasing by 47 percent between 2004 and 2006. While the demand for other gift categories has been slowing down, food gifts are becoming the first choice for many consumers.
"Our online sales increased by 66 percent last year," said Ed Scavuzzo, president of the Kansas City Steak Co., an online food retailer specializing in high-quality steaks and seafood "We shipped over one million packages of our Kansas City beef in 2006, and we are expecting even larger increases as we move into the holiday season of 2007." – keepMEcurrent.com
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health?
French study: Seafood fights dementia
A diet rich in fish, Omega-3 oils, fruits and vegetables may lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, whereas consuming Omega-6 rich oils could increase chances of developing memory problems.
This is the outcome of a major research project reported in the current issue of the international journal, Neurology, which suggests that eating more fish reduces the risk of suffering Alzheimer’s disease.
For the study, researchers examined the diets of 8,085 men and women over the age of 65 who did not have dementia at the beginning of the study. During four years of follow-up investigations, 183 of the participants developed Alzheimer’s disease and 98 developed another type of dementia.
The study found people who regularly consumed Omega-3 rich oils -- found most abundantly in “long-chain” forms in seafood but also found in other forms (“short chain”) in flaxseed oil and walnut oil -- reduced their risk of dementia by 60 per cent compared with people who did not regularly consume such oils.
People who ate fruits and vegetables daily also reduced their risk of dementia by 30 percent compared with those who did not regularly eat fruits and vegetables. The study also found people who ate fish at least once a week had a 35 percent lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and 40 percent lower risk of dementia - provided they did not carry a gene that increases the risk of Alzheimer’s, called apolipoprotein E4, or ApoE4.
“Given that most people do not carry the ApoE4 gene, these results could have considerable implications in terms of public health,” said study author Pascale Barberger-Gateau, PhD, of INSERM, the French National Institute for Health & Medical Research, in Bordeaux, France. – The Fish Site, UK
Business Toolbox: Unbearable boredom
Here is the report you read about in the preceding item"
For any masochists out there, here is an abstract of the report described in the preceding article. For the rest of you, this class is adjourned and will reconvene below.
Dietary patterns and risk of dementia
The Three-City cohort study*
P. Barberger-Gateau, PhD, C. Raffaitin, MD, L. Letenneur, PhD, C. Berr, PhD, C. Tzourio, PhD, J. F. Dartigues, PhD and A. Alpérovitch, PhD
From INSERM, U593, Univ Victor Segalen (P.B.-G., C.R., L.L., J.F.D.), Bordeaux; INSERM, U888, Univ Montpellier (C.B.); and INSERM, U708 (C.T., A.A.), Paris, France.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. P. Barberger-Gateau, INSERM, U593, University Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2, case 11, 146 rue Léo-Saignat, F-33076 Bordeaux cedex, France Pascale.Barberger-Gateau@isped.u-bordeaux2.fr
Background: Dietary fatty acids and antioxidants may contribute to decrease dementia risk, but epidemiologic data remain controversial. The aim of our study was to analyze the relationship between dietary patterns and risk of dementia or Alzheimer disease (AD), adjusting for sociodemographic and vascular risk factors, and taking into account the ApoE genotype.
Methods: A total of 8,085 nondemented participants aged 65 and over were included in the Three-City cohort study in Bordeaux, Dijon, and Montpellier (France) in 1999–2000 and had at least one re-examination over 4 years (rate of follow-up 89.1%). An independent committee of neurologists validated 281 incident cases of dementia (including 183 AD).
Results: Daily consumption of fruits and vegetables was associated with a decreased risk of all cause dementia (hazard ratio [HR] 0.72, 95% CI 0.53 to 0.97) in fully adjusted models. Weekly consumption of fish was associated with a reduced risk of AD (HR 0.65, 95% CI 0.43 to 0.994) and all cause dementia but only among ApoE  4 noncarriers (HR 0.60, 95% CI 0.40 to 0.90). Regular use of omega-3 rich oils was associated with a decreased risk of borderline significance for all cause dementia (HR 0.46, 95% CI 0.19 to 1.11). Regular consumption of omega-6 rich oils not compensated by consumption of omega-3 rich oils or fish was associated with an increased risk of dementia (HR 2.12, 95% CI 1.30 to 3.46) among ApoE 4 noncarriers.
Conclusion: Frequent consumption of fruits and vegetables, fish, and omega-3 rich oils may decrease the risk of dementia and Alzheimer disease, especially among ApoE 4 noncarriers.
GLOSSARY: AD = Alzheimer disease; BMI = body mass index; CCPPRB = Consultative Committee for the Protection of Persons participating in Biomedical Research; DHA = docosahexaenoic acid; EI = energy intake; HR = hazard ratio; PUFA = polyunsaturated fatty acids.
Business Toolbox: Restaurant themes
Making bread with squid
NORTH BERGEN, N.J. – Ever since Raffaele Vanacore and his brother Giacomo opened their 90-seat Italian restaurant, Trattoria La Sorrentina, in North Bergen five years ago, the fried calamari appetizer has been a perennial customer favorite.
So much so that they now go through about 200 pounds of squid a week. At the Harvest Restaurant Group, calamari in various guises appears on the menus of four of its five restaurants: Trap Rock Brewery in Berkeley Heights, which features New American cooking; Ciao and 3West, an Italian restaurant and a French-American bistro, respectively, both in Basking Ridge; and the Huntley Tavern in Summit.
Calamari will probably be on the menu of two more restaurants the group expects to open in Parsippany as well, said Bella Kapanadzi, a manager at Trap Rock.
"It's just in high demand with our customers. It's a very popular food to eat at the bar because it's easy to share. They're looking for something a little more exciting to eat, and they're willing to try it, even not fried." she said. "I don't eat fish at all. But I love calamari."
While worldwide demand for squid has always been strong, "domestic sales have more than quadrupled in the last five years," said Ruben Sosa, New Jersey area sales representative for Ruggiero Seafood Inc., of Newark, one of the largest processors of cleaned calamari in the nation, which sells its products under the Fisherman's Pride label.
"Squid is one of the major harvests in New Jersey," said Linda O'Dierno, coordinator of fish and seafood development for the NJ Department of Agriculture in Trenton. "A lot of it used to be shipped overseas. There is more of a domestic market for it now, especially around the holidays."
Partly because of fishing quotas established by the National Marine Fisheries Service, "there's more demand for the East Coast species of calamari in the United States than there is supply generally," said Jeff Reichle, president of Lund's Fisheries in Cape May, which catches one to four tons of squid a year.
About 70 percent of its squid is sold as cleaned frozen calamari under the Sea Legend label and for Sysco, a foodservice company. Most of the remainder is sold whole for export and to wholesale markets in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Jessup, Maryland, from where it travels to retail outlets.
Restaurants are driving the demand for the mollusk, for the average consumer remains squeamish about handling it, said Reichle. "It's one of the highest profit-grossing items on their menu. It's cheap to cook it up," said Sosa.
Although squid can be caught year-round, the main season for local fisheries is September through March, with Cape May/Wildwood being the principal landing port in the state. According to Reichle, New Jersey lands about 20 to 25 percent of the east coast quota for squid, which totals about 18,000 tons a year.
While there are more than 280 species of squid, because of its taste and texture Loligo pealei, a long-fin squid prevalent in the waters between Massachusetts and Virginia, is probably one of the top three most desired varieties, said Reichle. "They don't shrink as much as other squid do. Any squid, if you overcook it, you're going to make rubbery and tough. Some have a higher water content so when they cook they dry out more quickly. Loligo pealei is more resistant to that."
To meet the seemingly insatiable appetite for squid, large processors turn to other long-finned species from China (Loligo chinensis), Peru (Loligo gahi), India (Loligo vulgaris) and other countries, such as Thailand. Short-finned types belonging to the Illex family of squid also are harvested, but they're not as sought-after as the Loligos. Though country of origin is not always indicated at fish markets, it should be listed on packages of frozen squid products.
Frozen squid are available whole and in a variety of cuts, both with and without tentacles. "Americans are afraid of the tentacles, but that's where most of the flavor is," said Sosa. – NewJersyBlog.com
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