Seafood Industry Braces For Losses As U.S. Bans Fish Imports From Russia

The global seafood industry is steeling itself for price hikes, supply disruptions, and potential job losses as new economic sanctions on Russia make species such as cod and crab harder to come by, Patrick Whittle and Jill Lawless reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: A fishing boat carrying boxes of fresh catch

The latest round of US attempts to punish Russia for the invasion of Ukraine includes bans on imports of seafood, alcohol, and diamonds. The US is also stripping the most favored nation (MFN) status from Russia. Nations around the world are taking similar steps.

Russia is one of the largest producers of seafood in the world, and was the fifth-largest producer of wild-caught fish, according to a 2020 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN).

Russia is not one of the biggest exporters of seafood to the US, but it’s a world leader in exports of cod (the preference for fish and chips in the US.) It’s also a major supplier of crabs and Alaska pollock, widely used in fast-food sandwiches and processed products like fish sticks.

The impact is likely to be felt globally, as well as in places with working waterfronts. One of those is Maine, where more than $50 million in seafood products from Russia passed through Portland in 2021, according to federal statistics.

“If you’re getting cod from Russia, it’s going to be a problem,” said Glen Libby, an owner of Port Clyde Fresh Catch, a seafood market in Tenants Harbor, Maine.

“That’s quite a mess. We’ll see how it turns out.” Russia exported more than 28 million pounds (12.7 million kilograms) of cod to the US from Jan. 1, 2020, to Jan. 31, 2022, according to census data. The European Union and United Kingdom are both deeply dependent on Russian seafood. And prices of seafood are already spiking in Japan, a major seafood consumer that is limiting its trade with Russia.

Andrew Crook, head of the National Federation of Fish Friers in the UK, said earlier this month that — even before the war — he expected a third of Britain’s fish and chip shops to go out of business. If fish prices shoot up even higher, “we are in real dire straits,” he said.

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