Exploring the creation of a new seafood market segment that would enhance the resiliency of small-scale commercial fishing industry in Rhode Island

Purpose of work:

Rhode Island has long been one of the leaders in its commercial fishery and contribution to overall domestic seafood production. However, both the commercial fishing industry and regulators are fully aware of the challenges they face, such as distributional shifts in many regional fish species and fluctuating market prices for catch. In response to these challenges, there have been several projects aiming to increase the viability of RI commercial fishing industry. Typically, these projects tend to rely on the current mainstream business model of commercial fishing industry that is primarily based on the ‘large volume’ mantra: large harvest and landing, dealers then process the fish in batch and sell by the bulk. What is often left out from this picture is the smaller-scale commercial fishing businesses, including the part-time fishers. We believe that there is an untapped avenue for a subset of RI commercial fishing industry, namely the smaller-scale and/or part-time fishers, which can contribute to enhancing the overall resiliency of the industry. There is a certain relatively unexplored high-quality seafood market segment that could bring higher value to locally landed – and often regarded as underutilized – fish species.

In this project, high-quality refers to the proper handling of catch, including the traditional Japanese fish handling method known as Ike Jime that preserves the maximum freshness and taste of a fish. Ike Jime ensures that the handler can control the texture, visual appearance, smell, and flavor of the final fish product. The higher-quality Ike Jime products demand higher prices in the marketplace, which would also demand higher prices to fishermen that use the technique to handle their catch, allowing them more flexibility in their fishing operations and diversity in the methods they are able to employ.

Project Objectives:

1. Understand the challenges in producing and supplying Ike Jime seafood

2. Investigate to what extent we can prepare the seafood supply chain to consider marketing Ike Jime seafood

3. Investigate how much the consumers are willing to pay for Ike Jime seafood

Project Team

• Michael Long, CFRF Project Lead

• N. David Bethoney, CFRF

• Hiro Uchida, URI

• Mitch Hatzipetro, URI

• Fred Mattera, CFCRI

• Shaye Rooney, CFCRI

Media Coverage

• October 2023: https://ecori.org/japanese-method-of-humane-fish-killing-improves-quality-and-flavor/

• September 2023: https://www.independentri.com/news/article_3622dd0e-527e-11ee-8f42-27a9b4c09940.html

This Project is supported by

• NOAA Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program

• University of Rhode Island’s Partnership for Research Excellence in Sustainable Seafood

• USDA Higher Education Challenge Grant Program