Ben Fisher

Reporting from Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Ben Fisher is a Seattle-based freelance writer. Previously, he worked as night and copy editor at the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s largest English language newspaper, and as digital editor of Jewish Quarterly. He is fluent English, French, Hebrew, and Arabic.


Author Archive

Published on
June 17, 2020

The second Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) webinar in its summer series highlighted consumer mindset trends and perceptions surrounding COVID-19 during the recovery phase, with R3 Consulting principals Sharon Ripps and Bill Romania noting significant changes in behavior so far …

Photo courtesy of Diana

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Published on
June 16, 2020

Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based Trident Seafoods is bringing seafood to customers with the use of a no-contact, drive-thru fish truck to sell its seafood products at two locations in Washington state.

The company was so inspired by the innovative curbside pickup methods introduced by restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic that it decided to design a method to offer contactless drive-thru shopping for seafood products, the company said.

The

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Published on
June 10, 2020

The nonprofit trade group Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) is trying to determine the best way to market its fish during the coronavirus crisis, which has caused a massive shift in seafood buying preferences globally.

The issue was explored in the most recent webinar in the GAPP’s summer series, “Post-COVID Communications and the Wild Alaska Pollock Toolkit,” which took place on 5 June. According to Caryn Leahy, the vice

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Published on
June 9, 2020

The budget for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) will be smaller for the 2021 fiscal year, though it won’t be due to cuts made as a result of the coronavirus. Rather, the natural and gradual reduction in funding is a result of how the group managed the spending of a grant it received in 2019, ASMI said.

Last year, ASMI received USD 7.5 million (EUR 6.64 million) from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agriculture

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Published on
June 9, 2020

Positive COVID-19 tests for 124 employees of Pacific Seafood and its contractors have led the company to suspend operations at its five processing facilities in Newport, Oregon, U.S.A.

The Clackamas, Oregon-based company said 53 of its employees and an additional 71 locally-based contractors tested positive for COVID-19, out of 376 workers tested, as of Sunday, 7 June.

“Initial results show that positive tests are concentrated at the

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Published on
May 26, 2020

Arctic On-Demand, a new Alaskan cargo and passenger air charter service, has begun serving the state this week with flights for its first customer, Copper River Seafoods

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Published on
May 26, 2020

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has canceled five of the six large-scale research surveys scheduled to take place in the waters off Alaska this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an NOAA press release.

The release cited the unique challenges and uncertainties posed by the coronavirus crisis, which have resulted in the cancellation of the Aleutian Islands bottom-trawl survey, the eastern Bering Sea

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Published on
May 21, 2020

Americans are cooking more seafood while stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The New York Times.

For Ren Ostry, the owner of Culver City, California-based Kitchen Catch, that trend has resulted in a tripling of sales for her subscription seafood service, which touts the environmental and social benefits of eating bycatch and lesser-known species.

According to Ostry, her customers are a combination of those eager to try

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Published on
May 19, 2020

Earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) held a virtual meeting of the Hydrographic Services Review Panel (HSRP) to discuss progress made in the offshore mapping of Alaska, among other topics.

The HSRP is a federal advisory committee comprised of stakeholders who assists in advising NOAA on navigation-related products, data, and services.

Much of the latest meeting’s discussion related to the

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Published on
May 15, 2020

Northwest Aquaculture Alliance (NWAA) Board of Directors member Wally Pereyra has strong words for the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) regarding the battle it’s waging in a Seattle courtroom. According to the seafood veteran of over 50 years, his plan for saving orcas offers a better path forward for the endangered whale species and a staple regional fishery currently caught up in WFC’s legal crosshairs.

In March, Washington state

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