![]() ![]() ![]() “We’ll never be able to catch the volumes required to support all of our customer base,” Decker said. In addition to the Rafael fleet offering Blue Harvest the ability to bring in a larger and more consistent supply of seafood, the acquisition also satisfies another of the company’s goals: Partnering with local, independent fishermen. “Most restaurant chains, a lot of them will print their menus once every six months, some will do every three months … if they’re printing menus on an infrequent basis, the last thing they can have is no product in the restaurant for the customer.” “The major customers want stability of supply followed by a quality product,” Decker said. Most customers in the business don’t want an inconsistent supply of seafood that’s hard to predict and often will only last for a short period of time. That cycle has led to further issues down the line. “So even at a small level today, everyone fishes in the same time-period, the market collapses, prices collapse – because they’ve overwhelmed the fish processors – and then the fishermen have to go and either tie their boats up or go fish for something else.” There’s not enough processing capacity left to cut the fish,” Decker said. There just aren’t enough vessels left any more to be able to catch the quota. There’s multiple reasons why that’s the case, he added. You don’t see it in Canada or Russia or Iceland or Norway, or any of the other first-world fishing nations.” “I’ve not seen a situation before, in my working career, where a first-world nation will leave the majority of its fish in the water and not harvest it to its maximum sustainable yield. “Our estimate last year was that USD 200 million of fish was left in the water in New England, and that’s been consistent for the last several years,” Decker said. The challenge currently, Decker said, is that the fishery in the area, which catches haddock, Atlantic pollock, and ocean perch – also known as redfish – leaves a huge portion of its quota in the water each year. “So the Carlos Rafael fleet was interesting from the perspective that it is capacity that hasn’t been utilized for the last three or four years, and was going to give us some additional opportunity to bring more fishing vessels to bear, and more landings, to stabilize our availability.” “What we quickly realized was the landings of our five vessels were not going to be enough to support even a series of smaller customers, just from a volume perspective and a stability of landings,” he said. Those vessels, Decker said, don’t represent nearly enough supply to match the processing capacity that Blue Harvest has on hand at their processing facility in New Bedford – a 160,000 square foot, SQF-certified facility that the company has upgraded through millions of dollars of investment. The company already bought a different small fleet at the end of 2018 called Atlantic Trawlers, which consists of five fishing vessels. “Our goal is to go over the vessels, do whatever capital improvements and maintenance is required, and fish them.”ĭecker declined to reveal the purchase cost.īlue Harvest has the capacity to handle whatever fish its new fleet manages to catch, according to Decker. “Our goal is to start fishing as many of the vessels as we can,” Decker told SeafoodSource. The vessels and permits Rafael owned have since sat idle, but according to Blue Harvest CEO Keith Decker, that is going to change as soon as possible now that the company has purchased them. "The Codfather” – who pleaded guilty in 2017 to falsifying fish quotas, tax evasion, and conspiracy and then subsequently settled a civil case with NOAA that forced him to permanently stop all commercial fishing by 31 March, 2020. The vessels, and permits, were formerly part of the fleet of Carlos Rafael – a.k.a. Last year in New England, U.S.A., 90 percent of the haddock quota and 92 percent of the pollock quota was left in the water.īlue Harvest, based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, is aiming to change those numbers and the company’s recent acquisition of 12 groundfish vessels and 27 fishing permits is a part of its efforts to begin utilizing the resource. ![]()
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