KODIAK - What better time to give big bucks to Alaska's biggest seafood guns! Not only can they capitalize on consumers' growing awareness that wild salmon is better for them than feedlot fish; it also means major processing companies can pounce on America's longtime favorite, canned tuna, which is under siege by a mercury scare. In contrast, Alaska salmon shows the lowest mercury levels of any fish.
A glance at the $7.4 million in salmon marketing grants awarded to Alaska's major processors shows that much of the money will pay for promotional blitzes for canned or pouched salmon. "A major focus of these projects is to move large volumes of salmon with an emphasis on pinks," Gov. Frank Murkowski said at a press conference last month announcing the grants.
He added that the grants would quickly move about 250,000 cases of canned pinks out of a backlog of 890,000 cases. "This is not a give-away," emphasized Department of Labor Commissioner Greg O'Claray. "From the get go, industry stepped forward and volunteered. They told the governor, 'If you help us market these products, we will match every public dollar with a dollar from our own pockets.'"
NorQuest, for example, plans to spend nearly $800,000 to launch a national campaign for smoked salmon in convenient pouches, and another $181,000 on an Alaska salmon salad sampling program. Trident Seafoods plans to spiff up its canned salmon labels and spend $77,500 on a canned salmon tasting promotion at retail stores. Trident's biggest blitz (more than $1 million) is aimed at getting Costco to promote Alaska salmon burgers.
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Ocean Beauty has earmarked more than $1 million for promotion of its Pillar Rock pouched salmon, and almost that much again for canned pinks. Peter Pan Seafoods has committed its funds ($362,500) exclusively towards canned salmon market expansion. Icicle Seafoods will use its $975,000 grant to market its Honey Boy, Black Top and Ship Ahoy salmon products.
Back to the tuna angle: StarKist, Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea, the three principal U.S. tuna manufacturers, sold about 2.3 billion six-ounce cans of tuna last year. But retail sales have dropped by about 10 percent in the U.S. in the past decade, to about $1.1 billion a year, in part because of public concern about the effects of mercury. Last year, shrimp for the first time overtook tuna in overall sales.
Women age 18-54 typically make 85 percent of tuna purchases at supermarkets, according to industry figures. More than 80 percent of all tuna sold is used at lunch in various salads.
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that, like lead, can damage the brains and nervous systems of fetuses and young children. Last year an advisory committee recommended that the FDA warn pregnant women and young children to limit tuna in their diet and offer educational material about which fish are high or low in mercury.
According to the Washington Post, in what appears to be preparation for new labeling regulations on tuna, the FDA is preparing an advisory to warn consumers that some types of tuna may pose greater health risks than others. The proposed warning would be the first specific FDA advisory about canned tuna.
Test results by the FDA showed that a study of 289 cans found white tuna, or albacore, is three times higher in mercury than light tuna, which are generally from smaller fish. White tuna's mercury levels also were more than twice as high as the canned tuna levels posted on the industry's tuna-facts Web site. The FDA has posted three differently worded advisories on its Web site for comment, and a final warning will be issued next spring.
COOL comments
The Dec. 29 deadline to comment on the proposed rule for the Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) program has been extended to Feb. 27, 2004. "Based on the inquiries we are receiving from both proponents and opponents of the program about its implementation status, we are extending the comment period to ensure that those wishing to comment have the opportunity to do so," said A.J. Yates, an administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "We strongly encourage all interested parties to submit comments."
The COOL program, which is targeted at retail counters across the nation, will allow customers to easily identify where their foods come from, and in the case of seafood, if it is wild or farmed.
Mark Vinsel of United Fishermen of Alaska offered this warning: "When they take public comments, a lot of times it comes down to how many letters they have in favor of keeping something versus the number of letters to remove it. There are some big groups who would like to see not only fish taken out, but the whole program scrapped."
Vinsel said it's important for Alaskans to weigh in and let the USDA know that seafoods in all product forms should be included in the COOL program.
Kodiak-based free-lance writer Laine Welch can be reached via e-mail at msfish@ptialaska.net.
