Photo courtesy of Tabasco
Top Species
Scallops
Atlantic fishery yielding
bumper crop of jumbo shellfish
T
By John Snyder
hanks to effective management,
the Atlantic scallop fishery appears to be sustainable and thriving and buyers are more than
happy to jump on board with
vessel owners and processors to
share in the profits. Scallop landings for the 2008 fishing year
(March to March) exceeded 50
million pounds, besting a projected 45 million pounds, according to Deirdre Boelke, scallop plan coordinator for the New
England Fisheries Management
Council (NEFMC) in Newburyport, Mass. Since the opening of
the 2009 season in March, fishing has been excellent in all areas,
both open and closed, and should
exceed 2008 landings, says Boelke. Projected landings for 2009
have not been announced.
22
SeaFood Business
August 2009
“There has been successful
growth and a rebound of the
fishery. This year the total catch
should be around 55 million
pounds,” says Joe Furtado, executive VP of Eastern Fisheries
in New Bedford, Mass., whose
company owns and operates 23
scallop vessels and sells approximately 20 percent of all scallops
consumed in the United States.
The company will maintain the
same fishing plan it followed in
2008 and hopes to benefit from
the additional fishing days afforded by the 2009 regulations,
says Furtado.
In 2008 sea scallop vessels
were allocated 35 days to fish in
open areas. That allocation was
extended to 37 days this year.
In the so-called “closed areas” of
Nantucket Lightship, Area 2 (off
Georges Bank), Elephant Trunk
and Delmarva (off New Jersey
and the mid-Atlantic states) scallop vessels are granted a total of
five trips that allow three trips to
Elephant Trunk, one to Delmarva and one to Area 2/Nantucket
Lightship. An 18,000-pound trip
limit applies for all areas. Since
the establishment of these closed
grounds, stocks have recovered
and are now yielding primarily
large-count meats in the U10 and
10-20 range. Furtado says that of
the 6 million pounds allocated to
Area 2, 95 percent are projected
to be U10s.
In the open areas there is some
mix of sizes, but overall the scallops tend to run large. “Boats are
getting as much as 3,500 pounds
in the open areas, which is nearly
double what they were able to
harvest five years ago,” says Boelke. Trips to the Elephant Trunk
area off New Jersey are also resulting in very good catch rates,
Boelke says.
With such strong landings,
New Bedford is certain to remain
the No. 1 U.S. seaport in terms
of catch value, a distinction that
it has held for the last six years.
In 2007 (the most recent figures
available from the National Marine Fisheries Service), New Bedford scallop landings were valued
at roughly $370 million.
Dana Temple, a veteran scallop
processor and owner of Crescent
Bay, a scallop wholesaler and importer in Cape Elizabeth, Maine,
says large count meats are a
good thing.
“The entire fleet is working
Area 2. There is a real push on
for large [sizes], the industry has
gotten used to it. U10s and 1020s are what drive the gallon
business in the fresh market,”
Temple says, “and processors
need to put away large scallops
for the winter.”
Temple, who also serves as
chair of Maine’s Scallop Advisory Council, recognizes the success of offshore management by
the NEFMC and would like to
see the Maine council come up
with similar plans for the state’s
waters by closing off areas and
limiting fishing pressure.
The Canadian offshore scallop fishery is also thriving. Colin MacDonald, co-founder and
CEO of Clearwater Seafood in
Suppliers and buyers are
happy with strong Atlantic
sea scallop harvests.
Bedford, Nova Scotia, says that
stocks on the Canadian side of
Georges Bank are healthy.
“This is the best recruitment
in the history of the fishery.
Two- to three-year-old juveniles
are booming and catch rates are
good,” says MacDonald. Clearwater, which holds 50 percent of
the Canadian sea scallop quota,
specializes in FAS, IQF Atlantic
sea scallops as well as Marine
Stewardship Council certified
scallops from Argentina.
Large count meats,
stable prices
With such strong landings of
large-count meats, prices are expected to soften with the increase
in volume and as quality is compromised by mid- to late-summer
spawning, when the scallops tend
to be milky in texture. When the
season opened in March, U10s
were bringing an ex-vessel price of
around $8 per pound, and now,
halfway into the fishing year,
prices have softened with volume
to around $7 per pound. Temple
says that $6.75 to $7 “would be
an ideal price for processors to pay
for U10s and $6 for 10-20s” as
they build up inventory to cover
winter sales.
Bob Fitzsimmons, owner of
Trisome Foods, a frozen scallop importer/exporter based in
“
Scallops don’t seem
to be as affected
by the weak economy
as other seafood
products. I have seen
haddock prices drop
and shrimp is down,
but scallops
are strong.
— John Lang, owner,
Sea Born Products
”
Stratham, N.H., says “business
has been solid” since the beginning of the year. “There has been
a good supply of [domestic] product and customers recognize that
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Top Species
24
SeaFood Business
August 2009
Ray
Swenton,
president of Bristol
Seafood, a major
fresh scallop processor and supermarket
supplier in Portland,
Maine, agrees that
the resource is healthy
and that the market
is strong. However,
Swenton cautions buyers that there “is a lot
of misinformation out
there,” especially when
it comes to pricing.
It’s important for buyers to
compare “apples to apples” when
making purchasing decisions,
says Swenton. Pricing can vary
greatly depending on quality as
it relates to time of catch (i.e.
when spawning), trip length,
processing (re-freshed and / or
chemically treated with sodium
tripolyphosphate) and catch area.
Buyers must be selective, he adds,
stressing that if the price is “too
good” the product may be compromised in some way.
The import market
Swenton says that Japanese scallop prices are tied to domestic
landings, although the Japanese
will have an “overabundance” this
season. Export sales of larger scallops to Europe should still be good
given the exchange rate and the
fact that European buyers prefer
U.S. and Canadian sea scallops to
Japanese product.
With regard to smaller-sized
scallops, Bristol has shied away
up and down.”
“Last year when the
euro was valued at
$1.50 to $1.55, export
sales for scallops and
fish were great. Today,
sales have slowed as
a result of the
exchange rate and
the economy. Also,
European
buyers
want 10-20s and not
U10s, which is the
predominant
size
today, but our fresh
[domestic] market is robust.”
On the import side, especially
where Japanese scallops are concerned, prices are firming, he adds.
As the largest U.S. buyer of North
Hokkaido scallops, Barndollar is
bullish on the Japanese market.
Successful management has
helped build a resource that appears to be truly sustainable. Overall, scallops remain an excellent
seafood value for the knowledgeable buyer, not only in terms of
price and availability, but also for
their durability, versatility, shelf
life and customer satisfaction.
Despite these tough economic
times, when it comes to scallops,
“People would rather pay for quality,” says Mike Checklick, VP and
fresh buyer for Braun Seafood, a
wholesale distributor and retailer
in Cutchogue, N.Y. And with a
reliable network of suppliers, that’s
just what his customers get.
Photo courtesy of Tabasco
scallops are a good value,” says
Fitzsimmons. Most of Trisome’s
business is now program, which
has largely replaced the trading
of years past.
Echoing the fresh market, Fitzsimmons agrees that large sizes
abound. IQF U10 dry domestic
scallops are trading at around
$7.85 per pound, 10-20s at $7.50
and 20-30s between $7.25 and
$7.50 (Fitzsimmons says that there
are no 30-40s to speak of). Processed (soaked) scallops are trading at $6.25 to $6.50 per pound
for U10s, $5.65 for 10-20s and
$4.65 to $5 for 20-30s.
Jeff Lang, owner of Sea Born
Products in New Bedford, is
bullish on the scallop market.
“Scallops don’t seem to be as
affected by the weak economy
as other seafood products,” says
Lang. “I have seen haddock prices drop and shrimp is down, but
scallops are strong.”
Recent New Bedford landings, including late June trips to
the closed areas, have resulted in
single-day hails on the Whaling
City Seafood Display Auction as
high as 160,000 pounds of U10s.
“And that does not include trips
that didn’t sell through the auction,” says Lang.
U10s are important for fresh
gallon sales. Some sellers make it a
condition of the sale that their customers take a mix of smaller sizes
like 20-30s to go along with a U10
to 10-20 order. Any softening of
the market is related more to quality than availability, he adds.
Buyers are cautioned
to not buy on price alone
and to look at other variables
to determine whether
they’re getting a deal.
from using Chinese product,
especially in retail, because of
quality uncertainties and the bad
PR surrounding Chinese food
products. Instead, the processor has been relying on scallops
from Peru and Mexico to fill that
niche and has been using a full
range of sizes.
Other importers like Will
Moehrke of Omega Sea in Newport, R.I., concur with Swenton
about the Chinese PR impact
on imported scallops. Many of
Omega Sea’s customers have
switched to Chilean scallops
since that country’s conservation
ban on fishing was lifted Feb. 1.
Steve Barndollar, president of
Seatrade International, a major
import/exporter in Portsmouth,
N.H., says “business has been
John Snyder is a writer and photographer in Fryeburg, Maine
Visit us online at www.seafoodbusiness.com