The complicated route pollock travels from remote Dutch Harbor, Alaska, to its customers on the East Coast of the United States via Canada has many asking: Why don't the companies simply ship the fish down to Seattle on US-flagged cargo ships and transport it across the country on rail or in trucks?

A logical question, and one that American Seafoods Company President Inge Andreassen addressed in court documents related to Thursday's filing of a motion in US District Court in Anchorage for a temporary restraining order to stop a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) enforcement action that threatens the ability to supply Alaska seafood to US customers and consumers.

The restraining order request, filed by Kloosterboer International Forwarding (KIF) and Alaska Reefer Management (ARM), subsidiaries of American Seafoods, said that without warning or explanation, CBP began issuing penalties to companies harvesting, processing, storing and transporting Alaska seafood products to the East Coast of the United States.

The route, dubbed "The Bayside Program," after the Port of Bayside in New Brunswick where the vessels used to transport the Alaska product would offload, was developed years ago by American Seafoods to more efficiently move product to East Coast processors while still meeting the terms of the Jones Act, which forbids US cargo being delivered on foreign-flagged vessels to dock in a US port.

Shipping shortages

In his statement to the court, Andreassen said a lack of reliable shipping infrastructure in the United States is the reason why pollock producers are utilizing foreign-flagged vessels and Canadian rail lines to transport its product.

"[T]here is a limited availability of domestic-flagged vessels, West coast cold-storage, and other US rail transportation systems necessary to deliver on temperature-controlled time sensitive routes to support [American Seafood Company's] Eastern US customers’ needs," Andreassen testified.

"There is no rail system over which [American Seafood Company's] seafood products can be reliably delivered to the Eastern US with the same guarantee of temperature control – a requirement for transport of [American Seafood Company's] seafood products. Further, there are not a sufficient number of trucks, trailers or reefer equipment available to reliably and timely transport ASC’s product to its customers in the required timeframe."

Andreassen said that even if sufficient US vessel-rail-truck combinations were available, any alternative would result in nearly double the cost for transportation.

"These substantially increased costs would result in increased costs to our US customers, and presumably the US consumer," he said.

Thirteen percent of American Seafood's finished pollock products are shipped to its customers in the eastern US via The Bayside Program.

"This corridor is critical to us as it represents over 90 percent of our entire US pollock sales," Andreassen said.

Be the first to know with Alerts
Receive a notification when news is published on topics or companies that matter most to your business.