Pollock fisheries in Alaska waters have all but finished, with a regulatory end to the year’s fisheries coming up on November 1. Catches in the state’s largest pollock fishery, in the Bering Sea, are approaching the year’s total allowable catch. National Marine Fisheries Service data showed 96 percent of the total Bering Sea quota had been harvested. Gulf of Alaska fisheries were proceeding more slowly, with 16 percent of the quota still on the table. The arrival of fall storm patterns in the Gulf of Alaska is likely to impact fishing effort through the end of the season.
Exports of Alaska product saw some notable changes in the first eight months of this year. NMFS data through August show that exports of frozen fillet product to the Netherlands, which has long served as a major redistribution point for seafood into Western Europe, fell by more than 40 percent, or nearly 10,000 metric tons. Increases in exports direct to some European Union countries—including France, Sweden, the United Kingdom—offset some of this decline, but overall exports to the EU were down by about 10 percent.
Japan and South Korea continued to dominate as destinations for pollock roe product. Japanese buyers took more product—about 17,800 metric tons in comparison to 9,700 for South Korea. But the value of product headed for South Korea was higher. According to NMFS foreign trade data, South Korea product is valued at $13.50 per kilo versus $9.20 to Japan.
Supply shifts on the horizon
The Alaska pollock fishery is the largest in the world, and the fishery in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands makes up more than 90 percent of the total Alaska catch. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) is
recommending a drop in the total allowable catch (TAC) in 2007 and again in 2008. Though the TAC has yet to be finalized, the NPFMC recommendations suggest a 4 percent decrease in 2007, with an additional 17 percent decrease in 2008.
The global whitefish supply picture has already tightened in the last year. Concerns over the potential for a bird flu pandemic have increased consumption of whitefish products in Europe. Health concerns are also driving more seafood consumption in the U.S. and Europe. An international trade group, Groundfish Forum, produced pollock supply estimates at its October 17-19 meeting that anticipated a total Alaska pollock supply, from the U.S. and Russia, to fall by nearly 300,000 metric tons in 2007.
Continuing growth in the whitefish aquaculture sector will likely fill the gap that would otherwise be created by the impending reduction in supply of wild-capture pollock. Production of pangasius (a catfish-like freshwater fish) and tilapia continues to increase.
Product Form in Alaska Production
Product form production, as reported to NMFS, stayed fairly steady from 2005 to 2006. The BSAI fishery saw a very slight (3 percent) downtick in surimi production, offset by a small increase in skinless/boneless fillet. Gulf producers saw a more marked shift, with an 8 percent decrease in surimi production. This is part of a steady trend of declining surimi production. In 2003, 45 percent of Gulf pollock was processed into surimi; that number was only 30 percent through October 14 of this year.
Fillet product is the other significant component of Alaska production, making up approximately 30 percent of volume in each of the last four years. This is dominated by the deep-skin fillet category. Deep-skin cuts remove the darker fatty layer of flesh close skin, producing a whiter product that is used in numerous value-added products, including the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish.
