Wednesday, October 1, 2014

USDA Purchase Reduces Inventories of Pink Salmon From Record Harvest

The US Department of Agriculture has completed a $12.8 million purchase of canned pink salmon harvested from Alaska waters for child nutrition and other domestic food assistance programs. The purchases from four major processors of Alaska seafood will help reduce large inventories of pink salmon from last year’s record harvest.

USDA bought the canned humpies from Trident Seafoods Corp., Ocean Beauty Seafoods LLC, Icicle Seafoods Inc., and Peter Pan Seafoods Inc.

The purchases amounted to $4,733,863 for Ocean Beauty Seafoods, $4,314,673 for Icicle, $3,056,688 for Trident Seafoods and $712,160 for Peter Pan Seafoods.

USDA said deliveries would be made from Oct. 16 through Jan. 31 to child nutrition and food assistance programs from Florida to Hawaii, including northeastern, southern, midwestern and western communities.  The distribution list is online at http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5109066

Alaska officials asked the federal government this summer to make a second major purchase of canned pink salmon to help reduce inventories and slow the price decline looming for Alaska’s commercial harvesters.  The request in late July came in the midst of another robust season for pink salmon.

Earlier in the year USDA purchased $20 million worth of Alaska canned pink salmon, part of the bumper crop of unsold canned inventory from the record-breaking 2013 harvest of 219 million humpies.


The previous record harvest of commercial pink salmon harvests was 161 million fish in 2005.