Will oil spill affect our seafood prices?
Andrew Skelton helps a customer on Wednesday at his Salem seafood market, Capt'n Paul's. Photo by Jared Soares/The Roanoke Times.
I tried to answer this question for a story in today’s paper, but what I learned is that it’s too soon to know for sure. It seems likely that the Gulf Coast disaster WILL cause prices of at least some seafood, particularly gulf shrimp and oysters, to go up. But nobody is quite sure yet how it will affect the seafood industry on a broader scale.
As we all know, however, when there’s a shortage in one part of the world, it often has a ripple effect on an entire industry. So even though a lot of the seafood consumed in America is imported, that might not save us at the grocery store or the seafood restaurant.
Know this: You should not be afraid to eat any seafood right now. Nothing in the supply line now was fished after the oil spill. Also, despite reports that the entire Gulf of Mexico is closed to fishing, some large swaths are still open and healthy products are coming out of those parts.
To learn more, check out my story here. Are you concerned? Let’s talk about this.
May 6, 2010 - 10:44 AM
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Between the Gulf spill, the Iceland Volcano (a good number of seafood products comes from Europe, including Farm raised Atlantic Salmon and Bronzini), earthquakes, shortened seasons on some products (snow crabs and wild salmon come to mind) this is not going to be a banner year for Seafood…
I follow the reports pretty carefully (I’m in the industry), and if there is one thing I can tell people – it’s forget about Wild caught stuff. The farm raised is perfectly good and safe, and the wild caught is only going to get more expensive as time goes on.
Most frozen seafood is imported, but that won’t stop suppliers from taking advantage of the disaster and raising prices. (The oil companies make good teachers.)
I would estimate that even the restaurants supplied by Atlantic seafood will raise their prices, all in the name of increased demand for their product due to the lack of Gulf seafood. On the surface that might sound a tad greedy, but in reality, it’s true. Some inland restaurant that relied on Gulf shrimp might turn to South Atlantic shrimp instead, etc.
I’m headed to the beach in exactly one month, and I’m guessing the price on my favorite platter of shrimp & oysters just went up three bucks. And it’s an Atlantic beach…
Off point, but an interesting article about range hoods. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/garden/01fix.html?scp=1&sq=range%20hoods%20exhaust&st=cse
I would be extremely surprised if you didn’t see a price jump at any East Coast beach this summer, Ab. And it’s possible that all shrimp and oysters will be more expensive no matter where they came from. As Andrew Skelton at Capt’n Paul’s seafood in Salem said, it could well impact seafood sales months from now. It will hurt if prices are high around Christmas.
It almost feels petty to talk about seafood prices here when I think of all the trouble the Gulf Coast families will have. So many of them depend on tourism or fishing to make a living. Will they be sourcing from Virginia or overseas themselves?
My aunt and uncle are both wildlife biologists for government agencies (she’s recently retired), and he specializes in contaminants. I was told the “dispersal agents” they are spraying to get rid of the oil are also toxic.
Here’s an interesting report from Field & Stream, with a video they shot when they boated out to it with the National Wildlife Federation CEO:
http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/fishing/2010/05/oil-spill-live-how-much-damage-will-dispersants-cause
While it might seem shallow to discuss how price increases affect us, far away from the disaster where people’s livelihoods are in jeopardy, I think it is the opposite. Reminding us in SW Va that something that happens so far away – the Gulf, where many of us might have never visited nor WILL ever visit, does indeed impact more than just the people who live there. It impacts us, too.
A significant portion of seafood comes to us from the Gulf, even as close as we are to the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic. If those people lose their businesses because of this disaster, it not only impacts them, but all of their customers. As well as the customers of their customers – i.e. us. It even impacts the seafood suppliers on the East Coast. They might now be overwhelmed by demand and unable to meet the needs of their traditional customers. You might think being overwhelmed by demand is great for a business, but not really. Having increased demand you can meet is great for business, having demand you have no hopes of filling is not.
On the consumer side, drastically increased prices means many people might stop eating seafood, including ‘just fish’. That impacts their diets, that impacts their lifestyle, and that impacts their social habits.
Funny how the decision by BP to go with the cheaper, inferior construction proposal by Halliburton on the drill in the Gulf leads to such a huge impact, isn’t it? But I suppose that’s a political topic, not a culinary one…
Lindsey,
On your query as to whether Gulf merchants might begin to source from Atlantic suppliers proposes an irony. Many Atlantic seafood restaurants have relied on Gulf suppliers increasingly in the past few years because of all the environmental damage done to the Chesapeake Bay.
Because of the toxic runoff into the Bay (primarily from fertilizers on the Eastern watershed), seafood harvest there is off by huge percentages. Thus, for the past few years you can find seafood restaurants on the coast in Md, Va, NC, & SC that serve Gulf oysters and shrimp.
Well, until now…