Curious what your fellow SeafoodSource readers are viewing? Here’s a rundown of the website’s five most-read stories and commentaries of May 2012:
5. Chicken of the Sea International shook up the shelf-stable tuna category at the beginning of May with the introduction of Chicken of the Sea No Drain Tuna, the first no-drain canned tuna available in the U.S. market. “It’s been a total homerun!” Erin Mrozek, Chicken of the Sea’s consumer marketing manager, told SeafoodSource in an extensive interview following the announcement. “The smallest to the largest retailers tell us how exciting is to see this kind of innovation in the category.”
4. There’s no better gauge of the health of U.S. fisheries than the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual “Status of U.S. Fisheries” report, released in mid-May. And again this year the news was mainly encouraging, with a slightly greater percentage of stocks no longer subject to overfishing or not being overfished. Also, a record six stocks were rebuilt in 2011, bringing to 27 the number of stocks that have been rebuilt in the last 11 years.
3. Every May, readers eagerly await SeaFood Business magazine’s list of the largest North American seafood suppliers, and this year was certainly no exception. SeafoodSource posted the list and accompanying story on 14 May, and it quickly became one of the month’s most-read. Also, on 10 May, SeafoodSource hosted a members-only webinar featuring SeaFood Business Senior Editor James Wright, Glacier Securities’ Ignacio Kleiman and Tim Antilla of Wells Fargo, who discuss the climate for M&As, access to financing and overall health of the continent’s seafood sector.
2. High Liner Foods at the beginning of May announced that it is closing two of its six North American processing plants as part of a reorganizational effort that’s been in the works since it acquired Icelandic Group’s U.S. and Asian assets late last year. “High Liner has grown through three recent acquisitions, and many of High Liner’s plants are operating below capacity,” said Henry Demone, the company’s CEO. “High Liner operates in a very competitive North American market with price-sensitive consumers, and we must be cost-efficient to remain competitive.”
1. A prominent U.S. news outlet in late May aired a scathing report on the presence of banned antibiotics in shrimp farmed in Asia and imported to the United States. For the report, ABC World News tested shrimp and found residues of three antibiotics — nitrofuranzone, enrofloxacin and chloramphenicol — in three of 30 samples. But there’s much more to the story than shoddy reporting, as I explain in my commentary “Ultimately, it’s up to you.”
Here’s a look back at this year’s most-read stories and commentaries, from month to month:
