Industry 'fairly optimistic' about seafood sales for 2021
December 11th, 2020 |
A lack of fish in the freezers is an encouraging sign for Alaska salmon as we head into the new year, a year likely to be driven by increasing customer demand. But headwinds from trade disputes and the COVID-19 pandemic also loom large on the 2021 horizon.
Those are some prime takeaways shared by Mark Palmer, president and CEO of OBI Seafoods, and Allen Kimball, vice president of global operations and sales for Trident Seafoods.
"We don't see entering the 2021 season with any real big carryovers. And that's always one of the downsides as we head into a new season, if there's an abundance of 2 to 4 (pound) sockeyes or something. We've gone into seasons like that and it influences the new season pricing. But as we go into 2021, we should have a pretty clean slate and be ready to buy and ideally put it up in a better product form than we did this last year," said Palmer, speaking at a webinar hosted by United Fishermen of Alaska.