Live from Palm Desert, California ... it's your new favorite podcast!

Don't miss the premiere episode of Catch the Current, the new weekly podcast series from Undercurrent News, as we recap the seafood industry's big kickoff event of the year -- the National Fisheries Institute's Global Seafood Market Conference.

Listen in as hosts Amanda Buckle and Lorin Castiglione are joined by Undercurrent News' team of reporters, including editorial director and co-founder Tom Seamen, Americas editor Jason Huffman, Alaska/West Coast reporter Jacob Resneck and head of growth and strategy/market reporter Gary Morrison, as they talk about some of the key takeaways from the industry event.

We're covering everything from the potential impacts of US president Donald Trump's tariff threats to getting more seafood into convenience stores. Listen below!

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Don't have time to listen? Find a full transcript of season 1, episode 1 of Catch the Current below:

Amanda Buckle (AB):  You're listening to the first-ever episode of Catch the Current, the new podcast from Undercurrent News, your source for seafood news, data, and prices. I'm Amanda Buckle. 

Lorin Castiglione (LC): And I'm Lauren Castiglione.

We are recording this episode of your new favorite podcast live from Palm Desert, California, where we've been camped out all week in fabulous villas for the National Fisheries Institute's Global Seafood Market Conference.

AB: That's right. And Lauren and I are not alone.

We're joined on the podcast today by our colleagues at Undercurrent News, who have been soaking in all the information this week and are ready to highlight the key takeaways from the seafood industry's biggest conference of the year.

So, pass the mic and introduce yourself. Jason, can you kick us off?

Jason Huffman (JH): I'm Jason Huffman. I'm the Americas editor.

Tom Seamen (TS): I'm Tom Seamen. I'm the editorial director and co-founder of the company.

Jacob Resneck (JR): I'm Jacob Resneck, Alaska and West Coast reporter.

Gary Morrison (GM): I'm Gary Morrison, head of growth and strategy, as well as reporting on the lobster, crab, and shrimp markets.

AB: As everyone could probably guess, a lot of the talk around the conference circled back to US president Donald Trump.

There are a lot of concerns in the industry about what's going to happen with these tariffs that Trump has threatened to implement. And Tom and I actually ran into one attendee who was carrying around a piece of paper with a hand-drawn meter to try to gauge how f***ed we are.

Tom, Can you confirm?

TS: It was interesting to hear his perspective that basically he's planning -- a major whitefish importer --  planning for the Russian tariffs to be removed as a result of what ultimately Trump will do.

AB: There's a lot going on.

And I want to actually toss this question to you first, Jason. How f***ed do you think we are? Answer this whitefish importer.

JH: Well, if you talk to a lot of the attendees here, you'd be on the far right end of the scale.

But there was a speaker, more than one speaker actually, who suggested this was some gamesmanship by Trump; that the way he is as a negotiator is he sets the bar so high so that people kind of freak out and get nervous. And then they respond and they give him things.

I don't know. It's hard to tell how much of this is really going to happen, but it does feel real. And remember, he did start a trade war with China. So, why wouldn't he do it with other countries?

Donald Trump. Photograph by Gage Skidmore on Wikimedia.

AB: Why wouldn't he indeed?

LC:  One theme that I saw emerge across both scallops and salmon was that, in markets facing tight supplies, strong demand, tariffs and uncertainties, is that flexibility was key. You know, we all heard members from the shellfish panel introduce our new 2025 buzzword, "optionality," for scallops.

And, you know, Jason, he reports on this as well. We are seeing limited harvest levels in not only the US, but Canada and Japan. Peru is still rebuilding. Meanwhile, in salmon, we're seeing varied catches on the wild side, shifting aquaculture conditions and potential tariffs were highlighted this week.

And when there is this much volatility happening, consumer education is pivotal.

The industry needs to spend a lot of energy to explain changes to product specs, to prices, to origins, so customers can understand the why and not just accept the necessary pivots, but also be prepared for them.

So, you know, with that industry need, I know I'm not only speaking for myself, but that's what kind of fuels our work here at Undercurrent.

AB: Yeah, no, I agree with you. And this information is important. That's why we've been recording on this. We've had this blog running for the past couple of days.

Tom, sticking with shellfish here, snow crab is facing a lot of trade uncertainty. We're getting how much from Canada? This is a big deal.

TS: I think they said it was over 90%. 

Ninety percent of US supply comes from Canada. And then in addition to that, there's the reduced volume coming as well. So we -- I think the scientific advice, Jason, would maybe chip in here -- the scientific advice is 30% for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but the Newfoundland advice is not out.

But people at the conference have been talking about a reduction there, possibly a 10%.

The GSMC 2025 shellfish panel. Photograph by Jason Huffman.

JH: Newfoundland might help to balance things out a little bit.

TS: Okay.

JH: But the gulf cut is going to be severe and there'll be less snow crab. And we're already in a situation now where there's not enough snow crab.

Prices are spiking. There's some concern that when they open the season in April -- that's when they get started -- that prices will already be elevated. And as a result, they'll go right into the next season with higher prices.

TS: I think the prices are maybe just returned to the levels before the pandemic. So, it's not as high as it was before, so maybe not disastrous.

JH: They've climbed a lot in the last couple of months, since the last three months. So they are.

You're right, though. If you go back a couple of years, you would see prices like this. This is par with where they were before.

TS: Pre-pandemic.

JH: Yeah, pre-pandemic, right. Pandemic was crazy in prices.

AB: Now, is that something similar that we're seeing in king crab?

TS: Well, there really isn't any available in the US market.

JH: There's some Alaskan.

TS: Some Norwegian. Direct Source --  Roman (Tkachenko) from Direct Source said on the shellfish panel that they're bringing in more Norwegian king crab. But I think that's a very small volume. Russia's the only game in town, really.

AB: I know Jeremy Woodrow from ASMI had a funny comment. He said something about, you know, get your tariff-free crab while you can, because they have such a small, limited fishery. Right, Jacob?

JR: That's right.

And on the West Coast, the production we're seeing right now is Dungeness crab has finally kicked off after months of delay for a variety of reasons. You know, off the coast of California, Oregon, Washington.

AB: All these reasons you can read on Undercurrent News. Jacob's covered them all.

JR: Fears over whale entanglement in the gear, high acid levels, low meat yields in the northern regions like northern Oregon, southern Washington state. But finally, the fishery is open and skippers I've talked to and I talked to some processors today as well. It's very scratchy, very scratchy.

They're not seeing the yields they're hoping for. So the prices are really reflecting that. I heard one processor had opened up with prices as high as over $7 a pound for Dungeness crab, which is unprecedented.

We haven't seen prices like that. The dust hasn't settled yet. You know, there's still a lot of fishing to be done, but we're going to get probably a lot more clarity in the incoming weeks. And we'll be reporting on that.

Cooked dungeness crab sold at Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington. Credit: Masahiko Takeuchi

AB: Can you also share some insight, Jacob, on what's going on with Alaska salmon? What's going on with wild-caught? Because there was a lot of talk about that at the conference and on the species panel.

JR: For sure. Alaska has got this perfect storm. It's just hit after hit. There's been the consolidation on the processor side. The dust hasn't settled. There are all types of environmental pressures, stresses on different fisheries.

Dust hasn't settled. We don't know the full ramifications of that.

The Bristol Bay wild sockeye, the largest wild sockeye salmon run in the world, had pretty good numbers this past year. But the fish were small and that really freaked a lot of people out.

The forecasts that have been coming in since then in the recent months have been slightly lower forecast, but bigger fish. And that's showing there's a lot of optimism in the market that they'll get more healthier sized sockeye salmon. We won't really know until like around the fourth of July when the fish start returning. 

Alaska fisheries, they're all wild. And so we're used to cycles and things just like beating after beating after beating.

And people keep saying, when's the recovery going to come? It's going to come eventually. But we just we just don't know yet.

AB: The poor seafood industry, the beating after beating after beating, that's also the theme of the year. And Gary, has shrimp taken a beating?

GM: When you talk about pricing last year, talking about 2023 was, you know, in the early part of 2024, some of the lowest prices we've seen in many years. 

There has been a rally since the mid part of the year. Inventories have paired. That's given sellers a little bit more confidence as they move prices up into the end of 2024.

Setting the stage for 2025 has been the story that's been setting the stage for the last couple of years. And that's Ecuador, right? So they are pushing into the US market. They've cemented themselves as our number two trade partner, after India, and they want to capture more and more market share.

And it happened. It started during COVID when they were basically forced to look to the United States because shipping was so convenient. And now they found a willing partner and a willing partner that has money to spend. And they're responding to the consumer demands here in the US by having more value-added product.

Peeled and deveined shrimp from Ecuador is increasing at a significant rate. And, you know, our buyers are willing to pay for it.

TS: They're building more plants as well.

GM: So yeah, they're building more plants. They're responding to the US demand. One of the panelists said it best. They've always had the shrimp and people would always say that they would go by the way of China, right? If China was buying, they would move out of the US market. But that just wasn't the case.

They didn't have the product that the US consumers wanted.

AB: Okay.

GM: Now they have it. So, they're looking to gain market share here in the United States. And it's going to be an interesting 2025.

JH: Gary, are you talking about Gabriel Luna? Did you see his comments? At one point or another he said something about capacity. He said people are worried that we don't have enough capacity and he said we do have enough capacity. 

GM: Yeah, that's who I'm referencing. He gave a lot of interesting tidbits. Listening to Gabriel is one of the better things here. And on the shrimp panel.

TS: It was interesting to hear Publix say on the record, because Guy (Pizzuti) was speaking on the record, that the Ecuadorian shrimp is -- he prefers it to Indian shrimp or Asian shrimp generally, wasn't it? It was kind of more broad.

GM: More broad. So he said he likes the quality.

TS: And also the guy from Fortune as well was enthusing about Ecuadorian shrimp when he's from the gulf shrimp industry, which I thought was quite interesting, too.

LC: Yeah, every year it seems like we're seeing more innovation and more adaptation to cater to the consumers, which is super exciting.

AB: And talk about convenience, too. You're talking about, you know, peeled and deveined. Like the consumer -- what was the other trend here? 

It's like we're talking about the tarriffs. We're talking about Trump. But we're talking about convenience, too, in that the consumer doesn't want to be inconvenienced.

They want everything kind of laid out and easy for them. And I think that's really interesting to see how the industry is evolving and building these different plants to kind of feed into that, because people do want more value-added products.

And I also thought that was interesting. And the C-Store panel at the end of Wednesday's conference, kind of looking at the convenience store space. Which isn't a normal space you would think of for seafood.

I will say that I have had a fish sandwich from 7-Eleven and it was good, but it wasn't ---  I got it because I knew that the Alaska pollock group, GAPP, had put this campaign together. And that's why I tried it. But I'm not going to lie. If I'm looking at a convenience store, it's not the first place I would think of to go for seafood. 

But they brought up some really interesting points in that the convenience store space has evolved so much over the years. And one of the attendees brought up the electric cars, which I thought was really interesting because that's how I could see the convenience store space evolving, is that it takes time for these electric cars to charge. So if you're having these entrees or these different meals and now that's where seafood can come into it. 

So there's, you know, you really could have this food service aspect of the C-Store.

Slide from Seafood in the C-store presentation at GSMC 2025.

JH: So, Amanda, are you saying we have Elon Musk to thank?

AB: Yes, Elon Musk is to thank for a boom potentially in seafood and the C-Store. But it goes back to convenience and that they don't even want -- like they want something that is ready-cooked and that somebody could just grab and eat.

TS: So were they saying that, for someone that's charging their car up, are they going to go, "Oh, I'm going to go and get a snack." Is that a trend that's been identified?

AB: So actually, you would think that would be the trend. That hasn't been the case. And the CEO of Rudder said they're finding that these people that are charging their cars, they're just sitting in their cars or they're sitting at the table. 

But maybe if we show that we have these better options for them. Something that, you know, maybe these drivers are more interested in a high-end product. So there you go with the seafood. But, you know, is the quality there?

JR: Or if you buy a pollock sandwich, you get a discount on your kilowatt hour.

LC: Exactly.

AB: What a deal.

GM: I think it was also, you know, not only the convenience, but the change in consumer, right? And I think that's a big theme here as well.

I'm a little bit older. I would not think of having seafood at a convenience store. But the next generation seems to be willing. And that's why sushi is such a huge growing market, right? It's the largest, the fastest growing seafood category there because they're willing to try seafood at pretty much any place.

Elon Musk. Photograph by Thomas Hawk on Flickr.

JH: I see sushi being sold in convenience stores. If you're willing to trust a place for sushi.

AB: Right.

JR: It comes to the rise of surimi, really, because, I mean, seafood traditionally is a highly perishable product, which is why you're not having a gas station where they, sometimes they have things that don't have a lot of turnover, like the hot dogs.

AB: Yes.

JR: You know, you have to have a long shelf life, especially in rural areas where they don't get a lot of traffic.

But, you know, with surimi, which is like a protein that has a really long shelf life, you can make a surimi salad, put it in a rice roll and you can leave it on the shelf for a week or more. And it's fine.

AB: I think we're going to continue to see this evolution in the industry as consumers change. And it goes back to actually working. And that was brought up a lot, too, is that fortunately, Trump was the keyword, not COVID. I think if I heard COVID one more time at one of these conferences, I might scream. 

People are still not going into the office, which they said is impacting sales at restaurants and foodservice. People aren't going out for breakfast, aren't going out for the lunch that they used to. Not that those were necessarily big places for seafood, but where there was seafood, now they aren't getting those customers.

Now we are seeing some places go back to work, but they said that it's not anywhere near where it was pre-COVID levels.

TS: They said 25% of people are doing two to three days a week at home, isn't it?

GM: Yeah.

TS: Yeah. On the salmon panel, they made an interesting point about skin pack development, skin pack salmon, and that it resonates with younger consumers who don't want to have the kind of personal experience of dealing with someone on the counter. I think the guy said, like young consumers glued to their phones, just want to go in and buy skin pack salmon. He cited that as a kind of driver of sales, which I thought was quite interesting.

AB: That is interesting.

GM: Yeah. I mean, you know, the CEO of Rutter's said the same thing. His new concept is going to be completely with zero waiters or waitresses.

AB: Yes, all kiosks, he said.

GM: They've been ordering through kiosks for the last 10 years at all his...

TS: I hate ordering through a kiosk.

GM: I hear you. I do as well.

AB: I don't know. I will tell you, I'm the first person in line at the self-checkout. If I don't have to interact with anybody, I'm that person. I am. I'm sorry, guys. I'm ruining it for everybody.

All right. Well, we're nearing our time. Final takeaways -- who wants to kick us off with final thoughts on GSMC? Jason, you always have something to say.

JH: We just had this inauguration and we're being inundated on a daily basis with news about things that are happening at the White House, things that are being said and comments made by different personalities, a bishop, for example. And so I think it's on the forefront of everybody's mind.

We're all worried about where is this administration going to take us? Are they going to hit us with tariffs? That's a big, scary bugaboo. Will they allow Russian seafood back into the country? That could be good for some, bad for others.

So the thing that I saw here at this event was that's where a lot of people's heads are. They're watching, trying to guess what's going to happen and trying to prepare for any potential move that could be made.

AB: Agreed. Tom?

TS: Yeah, I think the two biggest is the two T's: Trump and tariffs. They are my big takeaways. And until the tariff issue is settled, it's very hard to kind of get a sense as to where this year is going to go because everything comes back to that.

AB: It's kind of a wait-and-see until February 1st. I think that's where we're at now. Is when we're going to see...maybe, maybe.

JH: Yeah, if he actually does it on February 1st.

AB: Jacob?

JR: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that makes the global seafood industry so fascinating to cover is it relies on international, transnational cooperation and different countries, you know, looking past different cultures and political borders and working together. 

And so that's why there's a lot -- so much trepidation about this idea of putting up barriers to trade, putting up tariffs. And, you know, I mostly cover Alaska and 70% is an export market.

I remember in Alaska when the first Trump administration started the trade war with China, It basically was a death knell for what was left of the Alaska timber industry.

And so just the idea of having these tariffs on Asian markets could really, really hurt Alaska really badly.

TS: Yeah, when most of the seafood comes back from... goes from Alaska to Asia and comes back.

JR: Right, with the secondary processing.

I've already talked to some processors here at this conference and they're already trying to tool up and try to figure out how can we process in the United States so we won't have those tariffs, but still remain competitive, even in the domestic market, because it's so hard to compete.

TS: You know, some have made exemptions, didn't they? For the Alaskan products?

JR: Sometimes they can make carve-outs.

TS: Tilapia from China retained 25%, but then they took it away on the Alaskan species, I think, all of them, ultimately.

JR: It just seems, I mean....

TS: Not for a while.

JR: Right, it just seems so unnecessary. There's so much energy going into the speculation of what might happen, these doomsday scenarios, and I just hope that we can take a page out of this industry's book, which is we can find a way to work together and be mutually beneficial rather than erecting these artificial barriers and picking fights where there really isn't any actual true conflict or friction existing.

JH: Following the trade war with China, which was one of our biggest seafood sources, we saw a drop-off in imports from China. They got to 25% on tariffs.

Canada is a larger seafood import source, much larger. And if we hit Canada with tariffs, it's going to be devastating. 

AB: Wait and see. Wait and See. Gary?

GM: So I think my biggest takeaway is resiliency. I mean, we've been talking about Trump, tariffs, all these unknowns, right? And the industry has faced these black swan events for the last five years, all these outside factors, right?

So we had COVID. We had shipping tightness. We had prices go higher on pretty much everything from cost of capital to cold storage costs to logistics. And the industry has dealt with them, and they've dealt with them pretty good.

So, this industry is resilient. They're going to work within the framework that they have. And they're going to build their business the way that they can.

AB: I'm going to say that we had David E. Kelley from Riverence Provisions as the keynote speaker on Wednesday, and he brought up a good point. It's that this industry is passionate. And I want to say that I think that everybody in this room is ready to kind of just come together and fight and keep going forward.

And I think that was my big takeaway, is that no matter what this industry is facing, there's so much passion that there's going to be a way forward.

Lorin, end this with your thoughts.

LC: So, one thing that I've noticed is, in talking about the tariffs, is that when tariffs first came into play, a lot of my contacts were making moves with the uncertainty that prices were increasing because they weren't sure what was happening.

This time around, everybody's in a we're waiting until it's definite. There's no more of that. We're not spinning our wheels until it's in place.

So I thought that was interesting. And then also talking about the industry coming together on the shrimp panel. It was really nice to see that, the new promotion of the Happy Protein.

AB: Yes, the Global Shrimp Council.

LC: That was really refreshing to see as well.

GM: Yeah, I mean, there's an opportunity here to drive seafood consumption. And I think the whole industry is passionate about doing that. And they're working together to get that done.

AB: Exactly. Well, there is plenty more coverage from the Global Seafood Market Conference. We're going to have coverage going into next week. Keep checking Undercurrent News and don't miss out on future episodes of Catch the Current.

You can subscribe and favorite this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening. Bye!

Everyone: Bye!