Alaska’s pollock A season looks to be at least partially back on track after a chaotic early season stunted by COVID-19 shutdowns and rough weather.
There had been concerns that COVID-19 related shutdowns – in particular the closure of Trident Seafoods’ massive plant in Akutan, Alaska – might force seafood companies to leave quota in the water. But Bob Desautel, the president and CEO of Global Seas, told SeafoodSource that the situation has turned around in recent weeks, as plants began to reopen and fishing picked up over the past three weeks.
“I don’t know about Akutan. That would probably be the only question mark, but the overall sense is that we’re going to make it through and catch most of our fish,” Desautel said.
According to Desautel, Trident had caught just 11 percent of its quota on 7 March and was still lagging behind coming into 21 March, at around a quarter of their quota for the A season – which runs from 20 January to 30 April. Peter Pan Seafoods, however, had caught over 50 percent of its quota on 21 March, and Desautel pointed to the case of Unisea to demonstrate how quickly companies can put on poundage.
“Unisea was at 53 percent on 21 March and they were at 31 percent on 7 March. That’s about 10 percent a week, so they should be done with their allocation sometime around the end of April,” Desautel said.
Desautel asaid the boats Global Seas runs are already 70 to 75 percent done with their quota on strong fishing and, more importantly, bigger fish. The past B season on the Bering Sea was a rough one, with large numbers of small fish, useful only for fishmeal, providing low returns.
“We had a larger amount of fishmeal than usual because we couldn’t find larger fish in the second half of B season. It was smaller fish, so the recovery was less, and when you add in that factor, it wasn’t as good as we would have hoped,” Desautel said.
Fewer workers during B season also meant processors were not able to produce large amounts of deep-skin fillets or other value-added products.
Desautel said there were industry concerns the A season would also yield small pollock, but so far boats have managed to stay in larger fish, keeping fishmeal numbers down and creating conditions for higher A season flesh prices.
“It’s looking promising. The flesh prices are up across the board – PBO and surimi,” Desautel said.
While the fishing has picked up, supplies are still low, which is contributing to higher prices. Figures provided by Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) show production on 13 March lagging far behind last year. Surimi production this year sat at just above 42 million metric tons (MT) in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, compared to more than 177 million MT at the same date last year. PBO fillets were at just 16 million MT compared to 102 million MT last year. The overall quota for A season dropped 50,000 MT from 2020’s 1.425 million MT to 1.375 million MT this season.
And while these shortages are helping prices, Desautel cautioned that recent reports of record high prices for PBO fillet blocks and surimi may be exaggerated.
“The market looks pretty good. I’m not so sure about some of these reports of all-time high prices … But buys are high in both PBO and surimi, and we’ll see what roe gets at the upcoming roe auctions,” he said.
Desautel said roe is typically sold to Japanese buyers at a three-day auction in Seattle, Washington. This year, however, some companies ventured out on their own and are holding roe auctions in Japan.
“These auctions are going to be a telltale sign. And the unknown, really, is how this pandemic is going to affect pollock roe sales. There was quite a bit in inventory left over from the last couple years, when we got some really good roe, and nobody knows how much roe the Japanese are using in this pandemic world,” Desautel said.
Photo courtesy of Global Seas
