Seafood

The ASC certification programme for responsible aquaculture has made tremendous progress this year. Last month we saw the Global Salmon Initiative, a consortium of companies representing 70 per cent of the World’s farmed salmon production, commit to the ASC Salmon Standard. The project to develop the Feed Standard is also picking up pace with its initial steering board meeting planned for the end of October. …

A New Hampshire company will acquire Cobscook Bay Co., which makes all-natural seafood pies, officials for both businesses disclosed Thursday. …

The state of Maine is poised to take a bite out of the Canadian lobster market, warns a P.E.I. MLA. …

Sea Pact, a coalition of seafood industry leaders, announces their first Request for Grant Proposals. Sea Pact is working to advance sustainable fisheries and aquaculture practices through a grant process that awards funds to projects that are most aligned with their mission. Through this RFP, Sea Pact aims to select a project in line with their goals; Fishery and Aquaculture Improvement Projects, habitat restoration efforts, scientific research and other projects are encouraged to apply. Responses are due by October 4th, 2013. Sea Pact will announce the grant recipients in November. …

An Aug. 22 BBC News article quotes Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who’s studied the spread of Fukushima radionuclides in the Pacific, saying certain radioactive isotopes could accumulate in seafood and present risks to human health. But in an FAQ on the Woods Hole website, Buesseler clarifies it’s only certain species in the coastal waters off Fukushima, in fisheries that have been closed, that are unsafe to eat. He’s not concerned about seafood caught even a short distance from there, much less off the U.S. West Coast. …