With squid in season, sellers look to sea for profits

SEA FRESH USA President James Fox 
said the company prepares up to 20,000 pounds of squid for shipment each day. /
SEA FRESH USA President James Fox said the company prepares up to 20,000 pounds of squid for shipment each day. /

Of the nearly 300 species of squid, one of the finest, Loligo pealei, is found in great quantities on the southern New England shelf, within reach of Rhode Island’s fishing fleet. It is so well regarded in fact, that local packers market the catch that is offloaded here as “Point Judith Squid” and sell it to tony restaurants throughout the United States and Europe.
The bulk of the quota is landed between November and March, meaning that squid buyers and sellers are operating at full production right now.
In Rhode Island, there are two ways that squid is landed and taken to market, depending on the kind of trawler that is employed. One has a freezer aboard, the other carries ice to pack the catch. There are about 60 trawlers in Rhode Island and most of them hail from Point Judith.
The boats stay out days at a time and fish for squid until the multi-state region’s quota of 30 million pounds has been reached. Then the fishery is shut down. The region also includes New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, though Rhode Island boats catch and handle the bulk of the quota. Rhode Island companies often buy squid from other states’ boats. The value of the regional quota to the local industry is estimated at $90 million.
Seafreeze Ltd., based on the Davisville pier in North Kingstown, freezes all its product at sea on boats that have packing and freezing rooms below deck.
“Onboard the boats, the squid are graded according to length,” said Geir Monsen, vice president of the company. “That gives us more control.”
SeaFreeze’s plant is nothing but cold storage, allowing it to pick the best time to go to market.
In addition, the two boats owned by SeaFreeze, the Persistence and the Relentless, can stay out for weeks and can fish in weather that sends everyone else running back to the dock.
Only about 15 to 25 percent of SeaFreeze’s profit comes from Loligo. The rest comes from mackerel and sea herring and another species of squid called Illex .
SeaFreeze’s target is Europe, where discriminating buyers will pay a premium. “We sell a lot of product to the Mediterranean countries, especially Italy and Spain,” said Monsen.
Sea Fresh USA, an exporter and domestic sales company, buys fresh Point Judith squid, with the fish supplying 60 percent of the company’s profits. The company handles about 20 boats, and these boats are gone, dock to dock, from one to five days. Sea Fresh then either sells the squid fresh on the domestic market, supplying New York, Chicago and Providence, or it trucks the squid to its 70-employee plant in North Kingstown, then packs and freezes it for the frozen markets.
With squid, Sea Fresh stays domestic, supplying “the biggest food-service companies in the United States,” said owner James Fox.
Despite the amount of squid brought into the state, there is fierce competition from China and South America, mostly on price. That is why the local sellers work to brand the squid from Rhode Island. But with the growth in calamari as an appetizer, there isn’t enough locally fished squid to go around, creating an opening for the less-expensive, foreign – and lower-grade – product.
Like everyone else tied to the fishing industry, Fox has felt the squeeze of high fuel prices.
“The incentive isn’t there to go out and catch them. … So we try and give the boats more per pound for their product as an incentive to keep fishing.”
If the boats don’t go then none of the Point Judith fish companies get squid. And if these companies don’t get the squid then a lower quality import ends up on local dinner plates. It’s a chain reaction driven by market prices, an unpredictable natural resource, and steep operating costs. “This fishery is impossible to predict,” added Fox.
That unpredictability is partly because of biology. Loligo only live for a year. They grow incredibly fast and reach sexual maturity practically overnight. They breed year-round, some in the spring, some in the winter.
There’s an ebb and flow of squid abundance, but overall Fox said, “It’s a well-managed fishery and we all depend on that.” &#8226

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