Deep Dives
Last month US Customs and Border Protection hosted its annual trade summit, a multi-day stakeholder convening that covers all things trade governance. In panel after panel I was shocked to see one topic raised more often than drug trafficking, more than human trafficking, more than gold or counterfeit goods: illegal
Deep Dives
This is part of our series to help seafood professionals, newcomers and enthusiasts navigate the complexities of sourcing data. For more, read about species, vessel identifiers and harvest areas. For as long as humans have lived near water we have been fishers, and for as long as we have been
Deep Dives
This is part of our series to help seafood professionals, newcomers and enthusiasts navigate the complexities of sourcing data. For more, read about species and vessel identifiers. If watching a fishing vessel slowly disappear into the mist doesn't make you wonder "which management area are they headed
Deep Dives
This is the second installment of our series to help seafood professionals and enthusiasts navigate the complexities of sourcing data. For more, see our post on species. Keeping track of fishing vessels through supply chains is increasingly important for trade. The United States, European Union and quite a few additional
Deep Dives
This is the first installment of a short series to help seafood professionals and enthusiasts navigate the complexities of sourcing data. Thousands of finfish, shellfish, invertebrate and marine mammal species are served around the world from everyday meals to once-in-a-lifetime celebrations. Thanks to the sophistication of modern supply chains, much
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The Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and Justice are putting the world on notice - US sanctions are not just a domestic issue. Here's what seafood supply chains need to know.
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Last December, President Biden expanded upon a 2022 Executive Order banning select US imports from Russia–including seafood–to now encompass Russian-origin exports to the US from any country. Given their shared border and extensive processing capacity China has frequently served as an intermediary for Russian seafood en route to
Don't say we didn’t warn you about this one! Starting later this month, US imports of red snapper will have to include the name, flag and fishing permit information for all contributing harvest vessels—regardless of their size. Until now, NOAA’s Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP)
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On December 22, 2023 President Biden updated his previous Executive Order banning imports of Russian seafood to the US because, frankly, the 2022 version wasn't working. The new order became effective immediately which meant that some implementing measures needed to be put in place right away. Here’s
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We'll break down the seafood requirements in President Biden's second Executive Order on banning Russian seafood imports and discuss what to expect moving forward.
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Update: On November 16, 2023, NOAA announced an additional two-year delay in the implementation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act Import Provisions. Original post from November 1, 2023: Fifteen years after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was asked to ban seafood imports under the Marine Mammal Protection Act,
Deep Dives
Bombshell reporting this week on China’s abuse of forced labor in seafood has erupted into finger-pointing and calls for action across industry, service providers, advocates and even Congress. A quick aside: This is the important ‘out loud’ part of how any industry evolves and becomes more responsible over time.
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Yesterday The New Yorker published two lengthy exposés from indie journalist Ian Urbina on China's labor abuse in the seafood sector (citations below). They claim that 17% of the squid imported to the US was processed by forced laborers in China, some of it harvested by fishers enslaved
Deep Dives
In my first year of college I heard that Big Coffee was pushing small roasters out of business and self-imposed a ban, going out of my way (and budget) to buy coffee exclusively from small vendors. One day I asked a barista about their beans and was shocked by the
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This morning, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shared some practical information about their plans for enforcing FSMA 204 on an operational level. Here's our quick breakdown of what you should know: 1. Industry will be able to submit data to the FDA in two ways: 1.
