America loves shrimp, but apparently not as passionately last year as in '06: imports are down. Is it because of a weak dollar, or anti-dumping tariffs and customs bonding?

After reaching an all-time high of 4.4 pounds in the USA in 2006, per capita consumption of shrimp is expected to have dropped last year. That was the calculation of Howard M. Johnson, president of H.M. Johnson & Associates, a Jacksonville, Oregon-based consulting company and publisher of The Annual Report on the United States Seafood Industry.

"But it's not a long term trend," he assured those attending the annual Shrimp Forum held on Feb. 26, the final day of the International Boston Seafood Show. "There is no question that farmed shrimp will continue to grow, and that this market needs all sources of shrimp."

Johnson based his assessment on the 5.7% decline of shrimp imports in 2007, which weighed in at 1.23 billion pounds. This marked the first time in more than a decade that foreign supplies of America's favorite seafood--approximately 90% of which is imported--fell.

Fellow Shrimp Forum panelist Morty Nussbaum, noting that price levels today are almost the same as a year ago, commented: "Imported shrimp to the US has flatlined, which in medical terms means dead."

The truth is, a number of traditional suppliers to the United States market are finding other destinations more attractive at the moment, due partly to the ongoing slide of the dollar's value. Furthermore, packers in some of the six countries slapped with anti-dumping tariffs and continuous import bond requirements by the US Department of Commerce have opted to halt exports.

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"The present scenario of the US market is poor, mainly due to the aggressive and tedious Customs bonding procedures which impose unnecessary hurdles on trade. They are often more tedious than the imposed duty itself, and should be abolished," C. Selwin Prabhu of Tuticorin, India-based Nila Seafoods, asserted to this writer.

Nussbaum, chairman and ceo of Newton, Mass.-headquartered International Marketing Specialists (IMS), said that only by remaining constantly innovative and providing value-added products and extra services to clients are US importers able to survive.

While the theme of the forum was the importance of third-party certification of shrimp quality and safety, a movement which IMS supports and has thus engaged services of the Kirkland-Washington-based Aquaculture Certification Council (ACC), Nussbaum was equally concerned about "staying ahead of the curve" and tackling the issue of economic fraud in the seafood industry.

Calling the supply of underweight product--especially squid--and the mislabeling of fish species such as grouper "widespread," he called for a crackdown against such abuse.

"This should not be acceptable in our industry. There needs to be more investigation, and a list of those who sell short-weight product," he declared. "The consumer or end-user is ultimately being cheated."

He also wanted to know how importers and consumers can be assured that product claiming to be certified has in fact been certified.

Bill More, ACC director and vice president, concurred that this has been problematic of late. "It's difficult to police," he said. "Recently in Canada contaminated product sourced from a Chinese plant was identified as ACC-certified. We traced it back and found that it was not from the stated plant."

When a forum observer suggested that the USFDA is not inspecting enough imported seafood, More responded: "You can't leave food safety up to the government, which does not have the resources. I hear that they are only inspecting one percent of the shrimp containers that are coming in."

The ACC executive, pointing out that commercial players--not Washington--are driving food safety programs, said: "Buyers are demanding the testing of product at the point of origin, on farms and in plants, before it is exported."

Major Japanese Fishing Outfit Sees Lower Profit in Near Term

Nippon Suisan Kaisha Ltd., Japan's number two fishing company, sharply reduced its operating profit forecast for the year on March 21, but its president said he was sticking to the company's midterm profit outlook.

Poor sales at home in the wake of a food scare in the industry and troubled overseas salmon and shrimp projects have hit the company's operating profit, now projected at a mere [yen] 7 billion as opposed to previous forecasts of [yen] 11-13 billion.

But company President Naoya Kakizoe said it would stick to its aim of raising group operating profit to more than [yen] 30 billion by the year to March 2011. "Sushi is now something being eaten all over the world and this is naturally creating a market for us," he said in an interview.

Japan, the world's largest consumer of seafood, is facing more competition for decreasing fish resources as overseas demand rises, a situation Nippon Suisan has tried to counter through ties with overseas firms such as Gorton's of Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA. Consumption of fish has been dropping in Japan but is rising in other countries, as consumers opt for what they see as healthier eating.

Kakizoe said his firm, like others selling frozen food, was hit hard after 10 Japanese fell ill from eating dumplings imported from China that had allegedly been contaminated with pesticide. While Nippon Suisan Kaisha was not directly involved in that case, it did suffer from the resulting scare across Japan, which turned consumers away from food from China. It has also had problems dealing with an earthquake and disease at a salmon farming operation in Chile, while its Indonesian shrimp farms have fallen into the red.

Kakizoe said the Chilean venture should return to profit in the year to March 2009, but a timetable for recovery in the Indonesian enterprise could not be set until August, when it will complete a test run of new farming techniques. Still, the industry generally is declining, he fears: "Workers are growing older, the ships are aging, and resource management isn't very good. All of this has to be addressed."

By JOHN M. SAULNIER, QFFI Chief Editor & Publisher

Surf's Up with Wave of Japanese Products Making the Scene at Boston Seafood Show

The sun rose again for Japanese exhibitors at the International Boston Seafood Show, as a government-sponsored pavilion showcased the fishery products of 10 companies offering everything from sushi to clams.

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One of the highlights of the three-day show, as least for food editors, was indulging in an authentic Japanese breakfast on Feb. 25. The menu profiled delicacies offered by the exhibiting contingent, as well as mist soup, short-grained sticky rice and gyokuro green tea.

Yoichi Suzuki, Boston-posted Consul General of Japan, kicked off the event with welcoming remarks, noting that his country consumes about one-third of the world's production of fishery products [which equates to per capita intake of approximately 150 pound per year]. While the home market is huge, producers of value-added seafood in Japan are increasingly eyeing export markets in North America.

The export target for seafood products has been set at [yen] 1 trillion ($10 billion) by 2013, said Toshinori Uoya, an export promotion officer with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

"Bringing Authentic Japanese Seafood to the American Palate" was the theme of the breakfast meeting, and Japanese producers are already quite successful in this endeavor. Last year exports of tuna alone to the USA reportedly more than doubled to 417,279 kilos worth $5,448,349 million. The boom in sushi restaurants serving up everything from bonito sashimi to saku no doubt is one reason for the surge.

"A generation or so ago, sushi was totally unknown to Americans. Today it is sold in take-out-packs at schools and universities," said keynote speaker Theodore C. Bestor, chairman of Harvard University's Department of Anthropology. The professor knows a lot about the subject, as he is the author of Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World.

As the sushi wave has now washed across most of America, Ocean Rim Japan Inc. has seized the opportunity to introduce fresh-frozen fish fillets in 150gram vacuum packs. The Hakata, Japan-headquartered company, established last year, exclusively sources raw materials from environment-friendly, organic fish farms on Goto Island in Kyushu, Hiburi Island in Shikoku, and the Uwa Sea off Shikoku.

Among products currently sold under the Satoko Japan label are sushi/sashimi grade yellowtail tuna fillets, smoked sea bream and sea bream fillets (as pictured above).

"They are convenient to serve guests at home. You just take a bag or two out of the freezer, remove the contents from outer packaging and leave it in the refrigerator to thaw for about five hours. Thereafter the fish is ready to slice into haft-inch cuts of sashimi or Italian-style carpaccio," said Satoko Otsu, executive officer of the company's Seattle, Washington-based distribution arm (Phone: +1 703-969-3650).

Among other companies at the Japan Pavilion offering frozen products were: Fukuichi Fishery Co., Ltd., with a range of tuna; Kanedai Co., Ltd., the largest processor of crab in the country's northeast, also produces albacore tuna carpaccio; Nomura Trading Co. Ltd., high-quality salmon and sushi cakes; Sugiyo Co., Ltd., Sugiyo Co., Ltd., "Snow Leg Queen" surimi.--Reported by John M. Saulnier