The scientific name may be different, but pollock remains a “nice, stable item” in the pantheon of whitefish.
According to an East Coast distributor, prices for IQF fillets have held steady for most of the year after a brief resetting of prices in the last four to five weeks of 2014.
All sizes of IQF fillets from China were selling in the USD 1.35 to 1.45 range (EUR 1.27 to 1.36), while Alaska pollock shatterpacks were topping out at USD 2.45 (EUR 2.30) for 4- to 6-ounce sizes.
Deep into Lent, which runs from February through early April, seasonal buying has been at its peak, and year-round buyers have also upped their demand. “We’ll finish Lent with very little inventory,” the distributor said.
On the surimi side of the business “everything is pretty stable,” said a producer, who noted prices have been stable and sales have been on the rise. “It’s a well-managed species,” he said of Alaska pollock.
The decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to change the scientific name to Gadus chalcogrammus from Theragra chalcogramma is a non-issue, said the distributor, who noted his company has changed the name on the packaging, but likely won’t be calling it out in communications with customers.
However, he noted, some in the industry see it as a bigger deal. “I’ve heard people say, ‘We’ll have to call it cod now.’ But it is still pollock to us.”
Additionally, a decision was made to keep the Alaska pollock name in place as a general designation, rather than restrict it to only fish caught in U.S. waters.
Like the name change, the distributor said another non-starter was the pollock import ban issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin last fall. Concerns were that prices would rise heading into the Bering Sea A Season, which began 20 January and runs through June. The total allowable catch (TAC) set for Bering Sea pollock was 1.31 million metric tons, an increase of 3.4 percent over 2014’s TAC.
Any price moves around the time of Putin’s statement were more a result of typical price moves late in the year, he said, rather than a reaction to the ban. Speculation that Russia would internalize the use of pollock, rather than export it, also didn’t occur.
“In the world of commodities,” said the distributor, “products find their way. They go where they are needed,” he said, such as from Russia to China for processing.
One issue that is still on the table is the price for A Season pollock blocks. There has been some drop out in participation in blocks, he said, which may be healthy for block processors because block prices have been depressed.
