With only a few weeks left in the B fishing season, Alaska pollock producers are winding down their fishing early as poor conditions persist in the Bering Sea.

Raw material harvests for all three major frozen pollock forms produced from the US fishery remain lower compared to last year: Surimi production is tracking at around 16.5 percent below 2019, deep-skinned fillet output is down nearly 14.4 percent behind this time last year, and pin-bone-out (PBO) fillets remain nearly 28 percent below last year's production year-to-date.

"I'm done with B season," an executive with one Alaska harvesting company told IntraFish. The company stopped fishing about a week ago, the executive said, leaving uncaught quota in the water given the poor results.

Citing similar conditions to a few weeks earlier, the producer said B season continues to be plagued by less-valuable fish sizes and a biomass widely dispersed across the grounds.

"You will see more pollock go to fishmeal and poor recoveries because of the small fish," the executive added, noting conditions are unlikely to change for any producers by the season's end.

Major product forms are likely to be short coming out of B season, with some doubting whether the fishery will produce what was expected to be 757,651 metric tons of product.

While buyers are already committed to July's prices for this B season's products -- at a range of between $3,500 (€3,064) to $3,600 (€3,151) per metric ton for PBO fillet blocks -- producers confirmed it's still too early to tell what prices will be like for 2021.

Global pollock harvest expected to climb

Global pollock harvests are projected to take a 3.8 percent jump next year, according to data released by the International Groundfish Forum, which predicts an overall increase for most whitefish species. That's largely thanks to a 7.6 percent rise in Russia's pollock harvest, which is estimated to be at 1.884 million metric tons next year.

The US Alaska pollock harvest is expected to hold steady at 1.507 million metric tons.

How much Russia's pollock quota could impact Alaska producers remains up in the air.

"Their product output never equals what their quota was supposed to be," one US producer told IntraFish.

The product mix remains a question as well after a dust-up among the pollock harvesting sector in the country. The largest pollock harvester, Russian Fishery Company, is preparing to apply for an independent Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) pollock certification, just weeks after six companies affiliated with the leading Russian pollock fishing company were kicked out of the country's Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) over disagreements on quota allocations and the structure of the sector.

In September, the PCA formally entered the Western Bering Sea region of the Russian pollock fishery into the MSC certification process, the group's second attempt at securing certification for the fishery after a five-year hiatus.

One producer with a US mothership operation, also noting the discrepancy between Russia's projected quota and the actual catch, said it's hard to know the impact yet on the US market of the changes.

However, he said, pollock buyers are no doubt following the developments, and making calculations about the certified supply in the coming year.

"If there is more MSC product, I'm sure they will take that into consideration," he told IntraFish.

Whitefish

Alaska pollock season limps to a close with sharply lower volumes of surimi, fillet blocks