Recession is good news for the frozen food category — the tougher the economy gets, the more consumers turn their backs on fresh products in favor of comparably cheaper frozen foods.
In an economically weakened Europe, food producers have responded well to the needs of families looking for more cost-effective ways to keep everyone fed. In many cases, this has required the expansion of frozen product ranges or the creation of completely new
… Read MoreBrown crab (Cancer pagurus) is one of the most recognizable shellfish in Europe thanks to the “pie-crust” edge to their shell, their distinctive brown coloring and large claws with black pincers.
Around 60,000 metric tons of brown crab are caught in European waters, making it the region’s most commercially important crab species. Thanks to their natural abundance in waters off the British Isles, the U.K. fleet takes close to half the
… Read MoreWith European cod stocks at unprecedented levels and quotas set to soar over the next few years, there’s heavy pressure on exporters to find new markets for the additional fish or see prices slide further toward unprofitability. In traditional cod markets, however, it’s the producers of other whitefish products that should expect to lose the most ground.
For the Barents Sea, the world’s largest cod fishery, the International Council for
… Read MoreNew Zealand’s Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) industry has navigating rough seas for the last two years as a result of an outbreak of the ostreid herpes virus-1 (OsHV-1), but there are at last encouraging signs that the worst of the storm has passed.
The virus, which is harmless to humans but deadly to juvenile Pacific oysters, first hit the Northland region’s oyster farms in April 2010 but wasn’t properly diagnosed until November of
… Read MoreWhen the London Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) unveiled its London 2012 Food Vision in December 2009, it made the commitment that all fish served at official events would be “demonstrably sustainable.” It was the first pledge of this nature ever to be made by a major international sporting event and one that presented U.K. seafood suppliers with a billion-dollar conundrum: With an estimated 14 million
… Read MorePrices of Norwegian coldwater prawn (Pandalus borealis) are expected to increase this year thanks to strong demand from its core European markets and reduced quotas in Greenland and the Gulf of Maine, as well as an anticipated reduction in Canada’s total allowable catch (TAC).
Canada, the world’s biggest supplier of coldwater prawns, reduced its TAC in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Its quota last year was 134,534 metric tons. Meanwhile, Greenland,
… Read MoreWhile the decision to proceed with the introduction of bans on discarding unwanted fish at sea has generally been hailed as a triumph for EU fisheries chief Maria Damanaki’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform proposals, the resolution to drag out the implementation of maximum sustainable yields (MSY) in European seas to the end of the decade took considerable shine off this week’s breakthrough negotiations.
During 18 hours of protracted
… Read MoreLos ministros europeos de pesca por fin cedieron a la presión pública y acordaron poner en práctica una serie de prohibiciones que será efectivamente fuera de la leyla controvertida práctica de descartando pesca no deseado en el mar.
Las fechas provisionales acordadas por los ministros en una tensa reunión del Consejo Europeo de Luxemburgo vería una prohibición de descartando la caballa y el arenque en lugar el 1 de enero de 2014,
… Read MoreEuropean fisheries ministers have at last bowed to public pressure and agreed to implement a series of bans that will effectively outlaw the controversial practice of discarding unwanted fish at sea.
Provisional dates agreed by ministers at a tense European Council meeting in Luxembourg would see a ban on discards of mackerel and herring in place for 1 January 2014, while a phased ban on the discarding of cod, haddock, plaice and sole would be
… Read MoreAlthough UK consumers are growing increasingly adventurous with the fish that they eat, they are still passing up on much of the shellfish that the country produces. As a result, a lot of the crabs, lobsters and langoustines landed in Britain end up in welcoming European markets, alongside British oysters, mussels and scallops.
France and Spain are the United Kingdom’s biggest shellfish customers, and consumers there will pay top dollar for the
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