Here’s a look at this week’s can’t-miss SeafoodSource news stories and commentaries:
• Vestia Holdings, a subsidiary of Icelandic bank Landsbankinn, has assumed full ownership of Icelandic Group’s parent, Eignarhaldsfelagiõ IG.?The sale won’t affect the seafood company’s business activities or day-to-day operations. But, according to Vestia, it will provide strong support to the firm’s management team to execute its business plan. “New ownership for Icelandic Group” was this week’s most-read story.
• The anti-farmed salmon lot has been making a lot of noise this week. On Monday, the Pure Salmon Campaign’s Don Staniford participated in a 29-hour fast supporting the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council’s opposition to salmon farms in British Columbia's Broughton Archipelago. The environmental NGO delivered a letter to the King Harald V of Norway, who’s watching the Vancouver Olympics, urging him to “stop the killing of wild fish by Norwegian-owned open net-cage salmon farms.” Also, a complaint filed with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleged that a Norwegian Seafood Export Council ad infers its salmon is wild when the fish is actually farmed.
• There were two more retail-NGO partnerships announced this week: The World Wildlife Fund is teaming up with Supervalu, the United States’ fifth largest food retailer, to help it develop a sustainable seafood sourcing strategy. And discount supermarket chain ALDI is working with Seattle-based Sustainable Fisheries Partnership to assess the sustainability of its seafood products.
• SeafoodSource Contributing Editor Mike Urch took an en-depth look at Tharos, a Chilean consulting firm than has developed what it claims is a revolutionary process for extracting oils from krill, the tiny crustaceans caught in huge quantities in the seas surrounding Antarctica. The non-solvent and chemical-free extraction technique, for which an international patent is expected to be granted in April or May, produces oils that can be used in products for direct human consumption.
• SeafoodSource ran two must-read Q&As with seafood chefs this week, both of whom are named Kevin. They are Kevin Davis, who is about to open Blueacre in the 9,000-square-foot space in downtown Seattle where he opened Oceanaire as chef de cuisine in 2001, and Kevin Cottle, executive chef at the Farmington Country Club in Connecticut, who’s giving the keynote address on seafood sustainability at the International Boston Seafood Show in March.
