About the Author
Mike Urch has nearly 40 years of experience of the seafood industry. He is currently an international seafood journalist, but has worked extensively in product/market development and quality control.
From 1986 to 2008
Mike Urch is a former editor of Seafood International magazine, which he helped to set up in 1986. One of the leading trade titles for the international seafood industry, it is read by senior executives all over the world. He also helped to set up and establish Seafood Processor magazine, which he also edited for a year. Together these two titles cover every aspect of the seafood business from sourcing the raw material, handling and processing at sea, onshore processing and packaging, transport and storage, quality control and hygiene, legislation, product development, marketing and promotion.
Mike was also responsible for developing other publications including a Mandarin Chinese version of Seafood International and a Japanese language newsletter. He helped to develop seafood conferences and exhibitions, prepared and presented talks at numerous conferences, and wrote the seafood chapter for a well-known book on food technology.
He has travelled all over the world visiting seafood companies and equipment manufacturers, trade organisations, government departments and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.
From 1983 to 1985, Mike was an independent technical seafood consultant. Projects included working in Malaysia as an FAO expert to advise on the onshore quality control and distribution of fish; technical consultant on an Irish Sea Fisheries Board project for processing shellfish; providing technical assistance and advice on salmon smoking to a multinational company; and organising a study tour of the UK seafood industry for Chinese fish processing experts.
For six months, Mike was contracted as a product development and quality specialist by a UK seafood company. Prior to that, Mike was head of the Market Development Unit of the White Fish Authority (now the Sea Fish Industry Authority/Seafish), where he was responsible for developing the market for under-utilised and ‘new’ British species of fish and shellfish. This included the development of new seafood products from concept stage to market testing.