Author: Mildred Bell

A press conference was not the first indication that something had changed in the Norwegian salmon trade. It originated from the quiet discussions between exporters in Oslo and Bergen, the kind of whispered remarks you hear at business dinners when someone lowers their voice and refills a glass. Tariffs were one thing. Everyone had been preparing for those. However, the EU’s increasing control over what qualifies as a “Norwegian” fillet after it passes through Danish or Polish processing facilities is something else entirely, and it’s starting to seem like the biggest problem for American consumers. This is the part that…

When the weather turns bad the week of a festival, a coastal town experiences a certain kind of disappointment. The vendors who have been preparing batter and shrimp counts for days, the bands tuning up, and the families who had circled the date on the refrigerator weeks ago are all examples of how you can practically feel it in the parking lots and storefronts along Oak Island’s main strip. Therefore, there was likely more relief than annoyance when the Town of Oak Island announced on Wednesday that the second annual Seafood Festival would now take place on Sunday, May 3,…

The majority of businesses wait for a brand launch to dry, just like a homeowner does with a freshly painted wall. Alex Farthing didn’t. He was standing on the floor of Seafood Expo Global in Barcelona six days after Naughty Prawn’s official launch, surrounded by buyers, exporters, and the somewhat weary crowd that always appears by the third day of any major industry show. He seemed to be unable to wait, and as you observe the timing of everything, you begin to question whether this impatience is a strength rather than a weakness. Ambitious moves are nothing new to Farthing.…

Whole fish have a peculiar psychology. When they see a snapper looking up from the counter, people who are content to wrestle with brisket or spatchcock a chicken will freeze. It seems like a test that most home cooks aren’t sure they’re prepared to take—the head, the tail, the silvery skin still shimmering in the kitchen light. However, if you speak with someone who has actually tried it, they usually have the same slightly arrogant look. Compared to a fillet, it’s nearly simpler. It is, in fact. Whole fish is one of the most forgiving things you can put over…

You can see why people here take this personally if you’ve ever stood at a Charleston dock at sunrise and watched the boats arrive. The shrimpers are first-name acquaintances. They are aware of where, when, and which boat caught what. Therefore, something went wrong when DNA testing revealed that almost nine out of ten shrimp served in some Lowcountry restaurants weren’t local at all, with the majority being farm-raised imports from Asia sold under the idealistic pretense of “wild Carolina shrimp”. Shrimpgate was the somewhat dramatic name given to that thing. And as a result, South Carolina is now the…

The smell of diesel blends with salt and bait on the docks before dawn, and the crews’ conversations nearly always revolve around this topic. Not the climate. Not the cost of fuel, though that is also a factor. It’s the science. Someone in an office hundreds of miles away has used the numbers to determine whether southern flounder will be worth pursuing at all or how many blue crabs they can harvest from the sound this season. In northeastern North Carolina, fishing has been a family business for many generations, passed down as casually as a last name. It feels…

There is a certain type of website that practically no one outside of a certain industry is familiar with, but everyone in that industry appears to have bookmarked it. Among them is Fish Information & Services’ seafood directory, FIS Suppliers. Long before the word “platform” was used at conferences, it had been discreetly cataloguing the world’s fish trade since 1995. You’ll probably find someone with the FIS page open in a tab in any mid-sized exporter’s office in Karachi or Casablanca, half-forgotten, half-essential. What surprises you is the size of the object. More than 135,000 businesses, arranged by processing type,…

A seafood processing facility after dark has a subtle, unsettling quality. When most consumers pull a vacuum-sealed fillet from a supermarket shelf, they are unaware of the working world that exists there: the hum of refrigeration units, the slap of rubber boots on wet concrete, and the smell of brine and bleach mixing under fluorescent lights. However, this is where the true narrative of contemporary seafood auditing is being written. In the third shift, when the cameras of courteous daytime visits have long since been turned off, rather than in flashy boardroom presentations. Richard Chivers’ consultancy, Seafood Audit International, is…

On a wet Tuesday morning, you’ll probably find two fish lying side by side on crushed ice if you visit any fishmonger along the Scottish coast. One is a glossy, striped mackerel that is almost too attractive for its true nature. The other is gurnard, which turned off customers for decades before chefs rediscovered it because of its peculiar armored head and bug eyes. In a conversation that most British home cooks haven’t really started yet, both fish have subtly taken center stage. Food Standards Scotland’s most recent review, which was released in early November, is the kind of document…

On a Saturday morning, you can witness the same little ritual taking place at any respectable fish counter. Someone asks the man behind the glass when the salmon entered after leaning in, sniffing once, and frowning. “Thursday, maybe Wednesday,” he says with a shrug. The client is hesitant. purchases it nonetheless. In a strange way, this conveys the whole story of seafood safety in a single, brief scene: a mixture of quiet uncertainty, intuition, and trust that most of us are never able to fully resolve. The healthiest option is supposedly seafood. Omega-3 fatty acids and lean protein are the…