New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Northern Wind is expanding its scallop traceability program into its lobster supply, with an aim of developing the technology to help reduce the risk of North Atlantic right whale entanglements.
Northern Wind finalized a partnership with traceability technology company Legit Fish in 2021, enabling full-chain of its North Atlantic scallop supply. That technology, which traces product origin, harvest area, and landing-date – verifiable to government records – will now be utilized in the company’s lobster supply.
“We’ve been running the scallop program for about three years, we got all the kinks worked out ... a year ago,” Northern Wind Co-Founder Ken Melanson told SeafoodSource.
Melanson said the company has been well aware of the issues involving the lobster industry and right whales, and wanted to try and help find a solution. The critically endangered whale, of which scientists estimate only 340 remain, have been found entangled in lobster gear and the industry’s potential impact on the species has been the subject of lengthy court battles in the U.S. as regulators struggle to balance the lobster industry’s needs with the survival of the species.
Melanson said Northern Wind, determined that the company’s scallop traceability program might be able to help with the issues facing the lobster sector.
“When we looked at it, we said, ‘What if we can overlap the scallop technology that we’re using right now, and put that into the lobster process and help this situation?’” Melanson said.
The company asked Legit Fish to begin looking into how to apply the lessons learned in the scallop fishery to lobster, and according to Melanson, the company is working on software to provide the same level of traceability for the company’s lobster products as it has for scallops.
Northern Wind has become more involved in the lobster industry since ACON Investments acquired and merged Northern Wind, Suncoast Seafood Inc., and Raymond O’Neill & Son Fisheries Ltd., forming Atlantic Sustainable Catch in October 2021. Both Suncoast and Raymond O’Neill & Son are Canadian companies, so Melanson said the company is going to focus on Canadian lobster supply first.
“We’re going to tighten down the Canadian supply, because that’s a little easier for us,” he said.
The end result will allow customers purchasing lobster from Northern Wind and the two other companies involved in Atlantic Sustainable Catch to know exactly where the product came from – and know that it came from areas with a low-risk of entanglement with right whales, Melanson said.
“It’s consumer-based, so if a consumer wants to click on the QR code that’s inside the retail store, they’ll get a story as to where it was fished, how it was fished, maybe what boat fished it, the time it was caught, the time it was produced,” Melanson said. “If we can pass that through to the consumer, hopefully we’re head of the curve.”
So far, the company has had multiple meetings with representatives of Canada's government to see how its traceability technology can be tied directly into government records, similar to how the company’s scallop traceability system works.
The end goal, Melanson said, is to increase traceability and ensure end consumers that the lobster it sells is doing its part in reducing whale entanglements, and through promoting that lower-risk lobster help drive change in the industry.
“If we can say that our lobsters came from a whale entanglement- or encounter-free area, than I believe we’re better off not only in the marketplace, but also in increasing the likelihood of the whales not going extinct,” Melanson said. “At the end of the day, we’re here to do our part in saving the whales.”
Photo courtesy of RLS Photo/Shutterstock
