Novi, Michigan, U.S.A.-based warehousing and logistics provider Lineage said its expertise in bonded storage has prepared the company to support the seafood industry during this period of uncertainty, which has been driven by rapidly changing tariffs and food safety requirements.
Bonded warehouses allow their customers to store goods under customs supervision, thus avoiding paying duties and taxes till the product leaves the warehouse for domestic sale. These warehouses have long been used in markets where customs quotas raise tariffs on imports of certain products, like beef, after the quota has been met. It is customary for importers in such markets to hold their products in bonded cold-storage in order to avoid excessive tariffs, or simply to manage cash flow during challenging moments.
“If goods don’t end up being sold in the US, products can be re-exported without paying import duties if they were stored in a bonded warehouse,” Lingeage Export and Import Services Director Jason King told SeafoodSource at 2025 Seafood Expo North America (SENA), held 15-18 March in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Lineage Import and Export Manage Stephanie Ansardi said this could be especially useful for seafood importers.
“If a seafood importer has [a] product that is subject to tariffs, regardless of import quotas, they could leverage bonded warehouse space to maintain a strategic supply of their product in the U.S. for deployment to the market as needed,” she explained.
“This could … help them manage costs,” Ansardi said, or improve flexibility, since “the importer can make partial withdrawals of this product to meet customer demand.”
Complicating matters are the new requirements in the Food Safety Modernization Act, although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that it would roll back compliance requirements on its new Food Traceability Rule to 2028. That rule will require companies to maintain traceability documentation on all food products in their possession...
