A leading U.S. seafood firm has been finding customers in Asia for Pacific rockfish.
Pacific Seafood is the second-largest Pacific oyster operation in North America and also ships steelhead trout and Dungeness crab live and whole cooked to Asian markets. It is now looking to add rockfish (also known as Pacific snapper or Sebastes) to its offerings in Asia, where demand for foreign seafood remains high – in part as a replacement for currently scarce and threatened native species.
“We discussed this developing opportunity with potential customers in Singapore and Thailand,” Larz Malony, head of international section at Oregon-based Pacific Seafood, told SeafoodSource.
To investigate other opportunities for its products, Pacific Seafood set up a marketing group called Positively Groundfish in conjunction with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Marine Stewardship Council, Independent Fishermen and Boat Owners, and Oregon State University.
“We are already actively communicating with many of the potential customers that we met and fully expect to develop business with them,” Malony said.
