Quin-Sea Fisheries, a Newfoundland-based seafood processor owned by Royal Greenland – has withdrawn from the Association of Seafood Producers (ASP) after a dispute over crab pricing data.
Quin-Sea said its withdrawal is the result of “many months of a strained relationship with ASP.”
The company had been in a dispute with the association – which represents processing companies in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador – over access to data on 5- to 8-ounce sections of crab the company delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
The dispute centered on the hard-won pricing agreement that processors and the Fish, Food, and Allied Workers Union (FFAW) reached in 2024.
Fishers initially refused to fish at the start of the 2024 season after Newfoundland’s Standing Fish Prices Setting Panel sided with the ASP proposal, which itself came after harvesters staged protests at government buildings over the way the snow crab market was being handled in the province.
That hard-won agreement included a bump in price and a later settlement price determined by Boston sales of 5- to 8-ounce sections from the start of the fishery through three weeks after the fishery ended.
That later settlement price was the source of the dispute between Quin-Sea and the ASP. To gather data and determine that settlement price, ASP pushed to obtain that information from its members, and Quin-Sea refused to provide the data to Deloitte, the third-party auditor.
Following Quin-Sea’s refusal, ASP filed a complaint against the company with the Newfoundland and Labrador Labor Relations Board, claiming the lack of information kept Deloitte from completing its review of the fishery.
Quin-Sea said it resisted giving away the information for multiple reasons and that the CAD 3.75 (USD 2.62, EUR 2.51) price per pound it paid for snow crab was greater than the minimum collective agreement on price in 2024. Eventually, ASP withdrew its complaint, but according to Quin-Sea, recent comments by ASP brought its relationship to a breaking point.
“While Quin-Sea has tolerated ASP’s internal strongarming and mistreatment for several months, recently, ASP took the unprecedented step of attacking its own member in public,” the company said.
Quin-Sea said ASP Executive Director Jeff Loder made comments to media about the company, and when Quin-Sea reached out, ASP refused to withdraw its comments and apologize.
“Quin-Sea will not be a member of an organization that makes false claims, ignores its own bylaws, operates without transparency, and launches baseless and costly attacks – both legal and in media – against its own member,” the company said.
The company said it will continue as an independent operation outside of the ASP and that it will continue to purchase its catch from harvesters at or above the fair market value.
“Quin-Sea Fisheries is not the first company to have withdrawn its membership from this version of ASP, and we do not expect to be the last,” the company said.
