The volume of sea scallops on the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction is predictably low for a mid-July Friday. Big scallops harvested from the Nantucket Lightship Closed Area off southeastern Massachusetts, a fishing area that was re-opened to the trawler fleet this year, have been coming in heavy all summer after being left alone for a few years to grow and reproduce. Most fishermen know to bring their jumbo-sized shellfish to the New Bedford, Mass., auction by Thursday, because by that time, suppliers are filling big weekend orders for restaurants and retailers.
On some days of this banner season, up to 35,000 pounds of U12 scallops arrive at the docks. And in the span of just a few minutes, more than $3 million worth of seafood will be purchased on an online qualified-buyer auction, a system intended to bring fair market value to New England fishermen. For years, they have been hit hard by strict regulations and dwindling opportunities to fish in a government-led effort to restore stocks of cod, haddock, flounder and other commercially important species. It's a system that buyers say still plays a vital role in the overall supply of fresh fish in key U.S. markets, despite cutbacks in fishing and the fact that about 85 percent of the nation's seafood supply is imported.
On this day, however, only 1,600 pounds of scallops are available, in four 400-pound lots that Boston distributor Sousa Seafood's quality grader earlier that morning rated as either B-plus or A-minus. Sousa's inspector also noted that the fishing vessel Bada Bing, which brought in that day's entire available product, is a day-boat that strictly goes on short trips to sea. Armed with this knowledge as well as his 30 years of experience buying fish every way imaginable, company president Mike Sousa now knows where to set his sights.
When the scallop auction kicks off at 9 a.m. sharp, Sousa sits at the desk in his office on the Boston waterfront - some 50 miles away from the auction itself - with eyes fixed on his computer screen. With a carefully timed stroke of the space bar, he bids on one of the A-minus lots at $10.85 a pound. But he's short by a nickel and the product now belongs to a competitor.
That's O.K., he says, because he only buys according to need.
"I don't really need anything [today]," says Sousa, whose interest in the day's limited offerings could be described as nonchalant. "We're very particular about what we buy. And I'm not going to buy for the sake of buying, because I've got plenty of fresh scallops on hand and 100,000 pounds in the freezer."
To read the rest of the feature on New England's display auctions, click here. Written by SeaFood Business Associate Editor James Wright, the story ran in the September issue of SeaFood Business magazine.
