May 1, 2006

More US seafood companies favour Chinese imports

US seafood companies are importing ever greater quantities of seafood from China due to cheaper labour in China and limited domestic catches resulting from soaring energy costs and lackluster profits.

Mark Soderstrom, president of Southstream Seafoods Inc said there is a marked increase in US imports of seafood. Southstream Seafoods is a US-based company that contracts with Russian trawlers to send their catches to China for processing before sending them to the US.

Soderstrom said the company expects to import about 400 containers of processed, frozen fish from China this year, up from 340 last year. Each container carries about 20 tonnes of seafood destined for restaurant chains and retail stores in the US.

Nearly 90 percent Southstream's imports comes from China, he said, because of cheaper labour.

China also hand-fillets the fish, unlike the US. Hand-cutting fish yields a higher quantity because workers are able to cut closer to the bone. Furthermore, machine-cut products might contain bones.

Another company, All American Foods Inc, is increasing imports from China due to cheaper prices and lower tariffs, said purchasing director William Rivelli. The Maine-based company imports about 70 percent of its seafood from China.

Fish processed in China can be sold for US$2 less a pound than fish processed in Denmark, Norway and Iceland, he noted.

Seafood would be priced out of the reach of the average consumer if the US solely relied on domestic fishermen, Rivelli added.