​We came. We saw. We reported And that’s a wrap on Seafood Expo Global (SEG)! The 31st edition of SEG, held at the Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Vía in  Read More  Breaking News

And that’s a wrap on Seafood Expo Global (SEG)!

The 31st edition of SEG, held at the Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Vía in Barcelona, Spain, came to a close on Thursday (May 8). But we’ve still got LOTS to talk about. Listen to the latest episode of Catch the Current as host Amanda Buckle and members of the Undercurrent News team recap some of the breaking news and other big stories from the show floor.  

Don’t have time to listen? Seriously, why not? If you were at SEG you probably have a long flight home …let us help you kill some time. If reading is more your thing we also have the full show transcript below, including links to check out more in-depth coverage. Check it out below.

Amanda Buckle (AB): This is Amanda Buckle, and you’re listening to Catch the Current. We are recapping Seafood Expo Global, and by we, I mean the team at Undercurrent News. Up first with me is Louis Harkell.

Louis, we had you on the podcast before Seafood Expo Global, and we talked about the anticipation of meeting with these Chinese contacts in the midst of what’s going on with the Trump trade war and all these tariffs. So, two days on the show floor, what have these conversations been like?

Louis Harkell (LH): Yeah, so the tariffs have had a big impact on China’s seafood sector. Bear in mind, the US is the largest single country seafood export market for China, taking about $2 billion worth of exports last year. So about 10% of total Chinese exports. 

Yesterday and today, I was speaking with Chinese companies to find out how they’re coping. Specifically, I was interested in Chinese tilapia companies, because looking at tilapia, much more than 10% goes to the US. It’s actually close to 30%. This totaled $420 million last year. So much more exposed than many other Chinese seafood segments.

That’s not to say that every company is facing a 30% drop in sales. That was evident from speaking with them. Like one company I spoke with, it was closer to 90% of its shipments to the US. So for that company, 170% tariffs is pretty devastating, and they’re clearly downbeat about the situation. They were shipping 700 to 800 containers a year. So now they’re virtually down to nothing.

They still had the workers living on site, because often these companies can be in quite remote locations, and the workers will be traveling from different parts of China — often migrant workers — to live on site in dormitories. They haven’t been sent home, and they hope that basically the whole non-production will be temporary, and that following negotiations between the US and China, tariffs might be reduced or removed.

AB: I heard on the floor too, a lot of, “I hope it’s temporary,” “we’re thinking it’s temporary.” Everyone’s really hopeful that it’s not gonna stick, you know?

LH: Yeah, that’s right. And I think there’s just a sense that, you know, Trump almost wears his unpredictability with the badge of honor, and that’s very apparent for everyone. But it means that they just don’t know, and that was kind of like the takeaway from speaking with them. But then, you know, other companies, they’re sending just 20-30% of shipments to the US. So for them, it’s still a big deal, there’s no doubt about it. It’s still a big hit to sales, but they were just clearly less concerned about it.

And then the conversation was also moving on to that, you know, what level of tariffs could they compete in the US market?

One packer I spoke with reckoned that a tariff of about 50 to 60% would be just about manageable. Bear in mind, it was about 25% before. So it’s still a big jump, but Chinese tilapia is pretty unique. No other country in the world produces the volumes that China does. It’s very cheap, so the tariff doesn’t add up to a huge amount in absolute terms.

And then you look at where tariffs also could end up being levied, and 90% on Vietnam was first proposed on the reciprocal tariff day announcement. The US imports a lot of pangasius from Vietnam, and pangasius is probably the most comparable product to Chinese tilapia.

So you know, if those tariffs come into effect on Vietnam, and then if China and the US can strike a deal, tilapia suddenly becomes viable again. It’s just very uncertain. 

AB: A journalist’s dream event.

LH: Yeah, it makes for, you know, good copy and yeah, a continuous flow of stories for us, certainly.

AB: Thanks, Louis, for following up on this with us.

So, in addition to Louis chasing stories on China and the tariffs, news broke from the show floor that American Seafoods ended its membership with the Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP). Leading into Seafood Expo Global, the Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers announced their partnership program funding. 

The next day, we find out that American Seafoods, one of their member companies, has actually pulled out and ended its membership. That was probably one of the big shockers for me from the show. 

I know I was talking with a lot of people in the pollock industry. And for GAAP, it was launched in 2003 to build demand and awareness for Alaska pollock. And American Seafoods has certainly benefited from it. I think dating back to 2019, they were among the recipients of a $1m investment from the association, which they used to launch two initiatives to bring Alaska pollock to new channels and customers.

But them pulling out of GAAP comes at a really interesting point because GAAP also just received some funding from the USDA, which they’re putting towards Colombia and Brazil and India, building the markets up in those areas. So again, there’s some real opportunity for growth there. It’s really interesting to see American Seafoods pull out.

I reached out to American Seafoods CEO Inge Andreassen and vice president of fisheries and sustainability Trent Hartill, who would not comment on the record to Undercurrent. However, GAPP CEO Craig Morris did release a statement saying that our great wild Alaska pollock industry remains united in its commitment to sustain for the future and continues to strongly support the efforts to build demand and awareness for wild Alaska pollock. And they said that they’re going to continue to advocate on behalf of the entire industry.

So that’s definitely something to keep an eye on, especially the partnership program kicks off.

But that wasn’t the only breaking news from the show. Our editor-in-chief, Tom Seaman, has been running the show ragged, Tom.

Tom Seaman (TS): I try my best.

AB: So what was the big story for you this week so far?

TS: The big story was one that’s been cooking for a while, if you’ll forgive the terrible pun, because we reported a few weeks ago that Pescafacil, which is a Spanish shrimp cooking company, was looking for a new investor. And the story behind this is very interesting because their still current investor is the Rincon family, which is a Venezuelan business family, which built up Grupo Lamar, which ended up being Venezuela’s largest shrimp company, very successful business, employing thousands of people.

And then very controversially in October, I think last year, the Venezuelan government accused them — with no real evidence — of orchestrating a coup and being involved with opposition parties. And essentially, they had to flee the country. And then the Venezuelan government took over Grupo Lamar.

Since Grupo Lamar’s exports have basically gone to nothing, I think, from the country, because it’s very difficult for a government to manage a large business. That left the Rincon family with a stake in Pescafacil, which is a company based in Spain, turning over around €30m with, in fact, a holding company, which the Rincon family owns 80% of owns 51% of Pescafacil, and then the founding family own the rest. And there’s been a kind of auction process for the company, or for the stake in the company, run by Luis Comella, who is the president of Pescafacil and also owns 20% of this holding company with Lamar.

This is very complicated, and I hope I’m explaining it okay after a long day at the show. So I spoke with Luis today. He cryptically messaged me saying the deal is done.

I ran over to the stand, got the story. The investor in the company is an Ecuadorian farmer and processor, which is called Grupo Diosmar, apparently turning over $250m, sporting 60,000 metric tons of shrimp a year. The deal isn’t closed, but it’s agreed.

So there’ll be obviously a final period of negotiations, but the price has been set. They hope to close the deal in a couple of months. Luis is very relieved because obviously he’s been running around trying to sort this kind of situation out and get a new investor into the company, which will also obviously bring raw material supply because this is a farmer.

What he explained to me is the arrangement will be Pescafcil has to exclusively buy from Diosmar in Ecuador, so they can’t go out and buy from other processors. So they’re tied in that way. But then at the same time, Diosmar has to sell to Pescafacil in Spain and Portugal.

So it’s kind of a good relationship between the two companies. He was very excited about the deal closing and being able to focus on growing the business. And it will mean that the Rincon family, the Venezuelan family that had to flee the country after their company was really taken off them, will then be divested from this business.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens there next. Another kind of subtext to this is that this is part of a trend of Ecuadorian companies looking to really diversify away from China. For some Ecuadorian companies, they’re sending maybe 60-70% of their shrimp to China.

The Chinese market is not in great shape because the economic slowdown in the country. So they’re all looking to shift their sales more to Europe. This is a company actually integrating and getting a sales presence in Europe, and then obviously also to the US, where Ecuador has a major advantage.

Well, all the shrimp supply countries are currently at 10%. But obviously the Asian countries — India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand — they’ll all go to much higher tariff levels as things currently stand.

There are free trade deals being negotiated, I’m sure. But as it stands, they’ll all currently go to much higher levels on July 9. And Ecuador will remain at 10%.

But I think even if they do these deals and remain at 10%, Ecuador still has a major advantage in the US market because it takes maybe two weeks for Ecuador to ship to the US market, and it takes 45 days from India to ship. So it’s much quicker for them to get to the US market. And it’s also much cheaper because they have lower freight rates.

So, there’s a lot of advantages there for Ecuador in the US. And that’s been a topic I’ve been discussing with multiple Ecuadorian companies. They’re all looking to diversify away from China.

And the US and Europe are the targets. So it’s been an interesting show to explore that topic.

AB: That story and more in the show notes of Catch the Current.

We heard from Louis Harkell. We heard from Tom Seaman. Now joining us right now is María Feijóo Ramos, a reporter with Undercurrent News.

Maria, you’ve been walking the show floor for the past few days. What are your big takeaways?

María Feijóo Ramos (MFR): So basically, if someone had told me a few years ago when I started in the seafood industry that it would become the most unpredictable rollercoaster of my whole life, I think I would have laughed, to be honest. But here we are.

So, starting with Argentina, which is one of the hot topics now with everything that’s going on there with all the vessels stopped. Well, the red shrimp sector is facing a crisis now of epic proportions. We already reported about it before but it’s still a thing so many people are worried about it. Despite the official start of the shrimp season on March 17, not a single vessel has sailed.

So the reason? Well, the high operational costs and low international prices have made it economically unfeasible to operate. So imagine the cost of the crew in Argentina represents about 60% of the production costs per trip, per vessel trip, while internationally it goes between 30% and 33%, more or less. So imagine it’s quite a thing there.

And then going to Ecuador, Ecuadorians are more optimistic, which is always a good thing given all the circumstances. But Vannamei shrimp production figures have been up at around 20% year on year in the last few months and prices are remaining stable.

So we’re always great to hear good news from them. And yeah, they’re moving south and onto a different species. The squid seems to be also in trouble.

Overfishing and climate changing and changing temperatures have drastically reduced the numbers and sizes leading to a sharp decline in catches. Over in the Falkland Islands, the fisheries are currently facing uncertainty as the second fishing season approaches. Many of you might know that or not, but last year, the second season was canceled completely.

They are worried about this happening again this year or what is going to happen.

AB: You weren’t kidding before when you said it was a rollercoaster.

MFR: Yeah, true! These environmental concerns and also the geopolitical tensions cast a shadow over this upcoming season. So this leaves many in the industry just wondering what is going to happen next.

And then there’s Peruvian jumbo squid, which once was a reliable source of squid for the global market. While I’ve heard there’s been a slight improvement in catch rates, it seems the overall situation remains quite precarious. So the industry is grappling with fluctuating stocks and inconsistent fishing seasons. This is making it very difficult for processors to maintain steady production.

And amidst all this, the hot topic of the last few months, the US seafood industry is facing its own set of challenges as well.

AB: You can say that again.

MFR: The recent imposition of sweeping tariffs seen by the Trump administration has sent ripples through the market. So most people I’ve spoken to today and yesterday are very concerned about the potential impacts of increased costs and disrupted supply chains and about who’s going to absorb all this. So what does this translate into? Well, uncertainty is currently the only certainty. So as I sometimes say, “what a time to be alive.”

AB: Last but not least, we have Matilde Mereghetti, who’s covering Latin America for us. What have you heard on the show floor?

Matilde Mereghetti (MM): Hi, everyone. So yesterday was definitely the busiest day of the show so far. And some people are already leaving today, so tomorrow will be quieter. But I went to speak to some Latin American companies, and Peruvian companies have definitely been struggling with the lack and the shortage of jumbo flying squid.

And as Maria just said, catches have slightly recovered, but the sizes are small. But as some say, it is better than nothing. Some companies managed to diversify and sort of process different species. This year, they hope that their volumes will recover. European processors also have been worried about the lack of squid supply from Peru and the Falklands with the cancellation of the season last year.

Octopus prices, as well, are at record highs. So the winter season in Morocco and Mauritania has recently finished. But demand is really high, both in Europe and the US.

We’ve seen really high prices at record highs, higher than in 2018. Although some of the processors managed to secure supply from earlier in the season when prices were not as high. But this might also impact demand going forward. So let’s see how this will play out.

AB: The Undercurrent team has been busy knocking out content after content. All the links are in the show notes, so be sure to check that out. And we’ll see you back here next week. Thanks, everyone.

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