The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is soliciting supplier bids on large quantities of Pacific Northwest groundfish, along with domestic catfish.
Suppliers must submit bids by 23 August on 151,200 cases of frozen Pacific whiting fillets and 50,400 cases of frozen rockfish fillets for distribution to federal nutrition programs. Deliveries will be made between October 2024 and March 2025.
The large U.S. West Coast groundfish purchase was previously announced in mid-July by U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), along with U.S. Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon), U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle (D-Oregon), and U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-Oregon). They said in a press release that the USDA would buy USD 22 million (EUR 20 million) worth of Pacific rockfish and whiting (hake) from fishermen along the U.S. West Coast.
“We greatly appreciate the efforts that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has made to support our [seafood] industry in recent years. These continue to be extremely challenging times, and we cannot overstate the significance of the USDA’s actions to expand procurement programs to include greater quantities of domestically produced seafood,” the Oregon legislators wrote.
The WCSPA, the Midwater Trawlers Cooperative (MTC), and the Fishermen's Marketing Association (FMA) all specifically pushed the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service to purchase Pacific rockfish and hake as Section 32 “bonus buys” that go directly to food assistance programs and American families.
West Coast fishermen and processors have faced many challenges following the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, WCSPA and other organizations said in a press release, including competition from low-cost imported proteins, the pandemic’s lasting impact on the restaurant market, and global trade disruptions due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“For example, Russian surimi, a product made from pollock and hake, has flooded the global markets, resulting in American job losses,” WCSPA said.
The agency is also asking for bids on 1.5 million pounds of farm-raised catfish. Bids are due on 21 August, with deliveries to be made between January and March 2025.
