China’s General Administration of Customs announced on 19 April a one-week suspension of imports from New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Northern Pelagic Group (NorPel).
The customs authority said it had detected the presence of COVID-19 on samples of two batches of frozen baby squid product recently sent by the company to China.
The one-week term for the suspension was imposed in September 2020 as China’s standard procedure in case of a positive test for COVID-19 on a frozen food product. Seafood companies from around the globe have been the subject of similar notices. In the same 19 April announcement, the General Administration of Customs said packaging samples of a batch of frozen flying fish roe imported by Peru-based seafood firm Matarani had also been flagged as testing positive for COVID-19 and the company given a one-week suspension from exporting to China.
Norpel Director of International Trade and Sustainability Brandon Mitchell told SeafoodSource the company has not been contacted by the Chinese government.
“No one has told us to stop shipping to China. We have received no notice,” he said. “We haven’t received any direct correspondence from China or any documentation at all on this, so we have very limited information on this situation.”
Mitchell said the product in question was caught last summer in U.S. waters and was custom-processed by NorPel for a third-party. It was frozen in July or August 2020 and had remained in a shipping container since then with a steady temperature of at least negative-10 degrees Fahrenheit. Mitchell noted the World Health Organization issued a report in March 2021 finding the spread of COVID-19 to humans from the packaging of “cold-chain” food is highly unlikely.
“From everything we’ve read, we know the USDA and FDA have put out reports stating that COVID can’t live in a minus-10-degree shipping container for the for the four-to-six shipping time it takes to get product to China,” Mitchell said.
Furthermore, Mitchell questioned the hygienic conditions of China’s inspection facilities.
“I’ve seen pictures from my customers in China of the actual quarantine process, where they lay products down in a warehouse where I would never consider storing my product. They’re not being unloaded in a clean and sanitary environment,” he said. “For them to have a five-, six-, or seven-week issue with the container and then to come back and say that [we failed inspection] is kind of absurd.”
Mitchell said the company’s shipments to China had been facing three-week delays getting into the country through February as a result of ramped-up processes ordered by the Chinese government, and then the Chinese New Year holiday furthered delayed customs inspections by another two weeks.
“What you might potentially have is companies who owe thousands in detention and demurrage charges that have mounted as their containers sit in quarantine, so there could potentially be an ulterior motive,” he said.
Mitchell said he wasn’t sure what fallout there would be from the announcement, but he expected the Chinese government is primarily pursuing a name-and-shame strategy rather than any financial punishment.
“Late last summer, our broker in China said if your name comes up on this list, it’s published in newspaper and that’s a negative connotation,” he said. “It’s tough to say if it will have any impact on our business. This is uncharted waters for us and definitely has the potential to disrupt our business to China.”
Asked whether NorPel has experienced any COVID-19 outbreaks at its facility during the time period when the product in question was processed, Mitchell demurred.
“I don’t think we want to comment on it,” he said. “We’ve taken great steps – just like any other seafood processor in New Bedford and across the U.S. – to mitigate COVID, including hand-sanitization protocols, mask-wearing, temperature checks on employees, and many other steps.”
Photo courtesy of NorPel
