Check out this week’s most viewed stories on SeafoodSource:
1) Species substitution: One of the world’s largest seafood companies was ordered by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission to cease mislabeling ingredients in its seafood products. Nippon Suisan Kaisha (Nissui) mislabeled queen crab as red tanner crab, which costs about one-eighth as much as queen crab, in its Zuwaigani croquettes.
2) Auction in limbo: The National Marine Fisheries Service charged the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction in Gloucester, Mass., with buying illegally caught cod and falsifying records in 2000 and in 2004 after violating terms of the first settlement by falsifying records again. But on Tuesday, the auction formally challenged a potential 10-day closure ordered by NMFS, asking a federal judge to bar the agency from suspending its license to operate.
3) Under attack: Greenpeace activists aboard the vessel Rainbow Warrior claimed they were attacked as they tried to inspect Spanish fishing vessel Cabo Tiñoso Dos for illegally caught tuna in Malta’s southern Mediterranean Sea. Aboard the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace-USA spokesman John Hocevar said, “The fishermen are pretty angry — about the disappearing fish, and about the regulations that have been put in place to try to stop the declines. As we approached, the captain got more and more animated the closer we got, shouting, pointing and even turning color, threatening to shoot us if we didn’t leave immediately.”
4) Road to recovery: Blue crab was the subject of this week’s market report. After weathering one of its most volatile years ever in 2008, the blue crab market is slowly recovering. Instability in last year’s blue-swimming crab market was largely linked to poor harvests in Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and India.
5) Bet on it: High-end seafood, particularly sushi-grade fish, is in demand at casino resorts along the U.S. Gulf Coast. IP Casino Resort & Spa in Biloxi, Miss., is among the casino resorts getting in on the action, offering Kona Kampachi from Hawaii’s Kona Blue Water Farms, among other high-end species.
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