Here's a look at this week's most popular stories on SeafoodSource:
1) Actor turned activist: Ted Danson's five-and-a-half minute interview on the CNN program American Morning raised a few eyebrows. Danson, a founding board member of Oceana, promoted the new film "The End of the Line," which he narrates, in an effort to raise awareness of overfishing worldwide. Danson's appearance then raised the ire of the National Fisheries Institute, which offered a rebuttal via YouTube.com to what it called misleading or inaccurate statements.
2) Farmed salmon outlook: Henrik Heiberg provided a clear yet sobering near-term outlook on the global farmed salmon industry during the RS Platou Markets Seafood Conference in Oslo, Norway. The VP of finance and treasury for Marine Harvest forecasted a 7 to 12 percent drop in global farmed salmon production this year, due chiefly to Chile's struggle with infectious salmon anemia. Chile's farmed salmon output is projected to tumble by as much as 67 percent in 2009.
3) Eat at Joe's: More than two-and-a-half years removed from Landry's ownership, Joe's Crab Shack, now operated by J.H. Whitney & Co., continues to reinvent its menu. This week the casual seafood chain, with 113 restaurants across the United States, added four items to its menu, including two items to its new Coastal Steampot line.
4) Kona Blue fires back: On Saturday, Food & Water Watch attorney Zach Corrigan and Kale Gumapac, head of Hawaii's Kanaka Council, held a press conference to persuade the Monterey Bay Aquarium to remove Kona Kampachi® from the "good alternative" list on its Seafood Watch seafood-buying guide. Neil Sims, president of Kona Blue Water Farms, which raises the yellowtail relative in net pens off Hawaii's Big Island, wasted no time refuting accusations that its fish-farming practices are environmentally harmful and detrimental to native Hawaii culture.
5) Chomping at the Bit: SeaFood Business Associate Editor James Wright's commentary on Thursday took issue with Mark Bittman's recent New York Times piece. For years Bittman has penned the newspaper's "Minimalist" column. "Bittman says the situation isn't hopeless," wrote Wright. "But when it comes to doing objective reporting, a minimalist he is. It's a trait shared by the Times' food editors, who repeatedly print critical articles about seafood with no input from the industry itself, only to run a less-heralded correction a few days later."
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June 11, 2009
