Seafood industry insiders are in Anchorage this week for an
update from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute on its progress in promoting
wild Alaska seafood to international markets, food service and retail outlets.
ASMI board members will get reports today from operational
committees working to increase sales in all three areas.
During presentations Oct. 29 at the Captain Cook Hotel in
downtown Anchorage, several ASMI presenters emphasized the use of social media
and high-tech websites and programs used to spread their message to millions of
people worldwide.
ASMI”s Alexa Tonkovich presented a slide show on a broad
range of efforts the agency is using to increase demand for wild Alaska seafood
from Europe to Asia to South America. Tonkovich spoke of collaborating with
cooking specialists and chefs to develop a fish burger appealing to Asian
consumers, online promotions with leading retailers in China and a variety of
promotional campaigns employed in cooperation with seafood businesses from
Europe to Asia to Brazil.
Randy Rice, who is ASMI’s seafood technical director, noted
that Europe is still the big battleground for discussions on sustainability
certification issues.
“There is a need to put a lot of information up on the
website,” Rice said. “One of the great issues in the sustainability debate is
transparency, and the need to meet that transparency… head on, particularly
with the chain of custody interest,” he said.
To that end, ASMI is posting news releases as each
participating company complies at a new level in meeting ASMI’s regulations for
responsible fisheries management, he said.
“Everyone wants certification to be simple and it’s not,” he
said. “It’s challenging to communicate something very complex and technical in
a simple format.”