Jason Holland

Bergen, Norway-headquartered Grieg Seafood will cease salmon farming operations at its five sites on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, citing the long distance between the Inner Hebrides island and its main operations on Shetland as the main reason for its decision.

An announcement posted on Grieg’s website stated that the distance was too great to operate the two areas as one unit, and that the Skye operation was too small to be operated as

Family-owned Norwegian salmon and fjord trout processing company Inka AS has confirmed that its new factory in Bergen will soon be fully operational.

Following a EUR 13 million (USD 15.3 million) investment, the 5,500 square meter facility is complete and now going through a series of tests and equipment fine-tuning, reported local independent newspaper Midtsiden.

The 3,000-square-meter ground floor includes a freezer and two Marel production

German consumers bought 401,000 metric tons (MT) of seafood in retail channels last year, spending EUR 4.1 billion (USD 4.9 billion) in the process. While the volume was on par with 2018, the value represented an increase of 4.8 percent, and set a new sales record, trade assiciation Fisch-Informationszentrum (FIZ) has confirmed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further lifted sales, with Hamburg-based FIZ identifying double-digit increases in both the

U.K. supermarket chain Lidl GB has disclosed its farmed seafood sources for the first time by publishing a list of its farmed fish and shellfish through the Ocean Disclosure Project (ODP). 

Lidl GB made its wild-caught seafood sourcing known through the ODP in 2018 and has now updated its ODP profile to include information on the origin of both wild-caught and farmed seafood sources.

Its profile, which reflects sourcing for all permanently

Joint-venture salmon farming company Loch Long Salmon Ltd. (LLS) has announced plans to introduce a number of semi-closed production systems in Scotland, with the first harvests expected in 2024.

LLS’s semi-closed systems are designed to improve the health and welfare of its farmed stock by excluding sea lice and therefore preventing the parasites from establishing a breeding population on the salmon, it said. The farming enclosures will

If the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) fails to implement a recovery plan to rebuild overfished yellowfin tuna and billfish stocks at its next meeting in November, then Tesco will stop sourcing these fish for its Own Brand products, the U.K. supermarket chain has warned.

Tesco sells two different tuna species in within its Own Brand: skipjack, which goes into cans and sandwiches; and yellowfin, which it sells in frozen or chilled steaks.

In

The European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment (ENVI) has voted in favor of steps that would bring more transparency to E.U. fisheries activities and traceability to seafood supply chains.

ENVI’s proposed amendments to the fisheries control regulation include:

• Vessel tracking and catch reporting to be required for all E.U. vessels.
• The use of cameras on part of the fleet to ensure full and verifiable documentation of seafood

Allowing the United Kingdom and the European Union to part ways at the end of this year without an agreement on fisheries in place post-Brexit would open the door to overfishing and pose a serious risk to many fish stocks and marine ecosystems, campaign groups have warned.

On 8 September, the E.U. and U.K. began a new round of post-Brexit trade deal negotiations, with fisheries and fishing rights again expected to take center stage as one of the

New funding has been allocated to help aquaculture companies in Romania weather the severe shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In line with the European Commission’s strategy to try protect the E.U.’s fisheries and aquaculture sectors, which has included amendments to the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), Romania has modified its operational program and allocated EUR 5 million (USD 5.9 million) of public support to