Seafood and the UN’s SDGs

Sustainably farmed and wild-caught seafood can play an important role in the drive to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to ensure global peace and prosperity, while protecting the planet. Launched in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, they were duly adopted by all UN Member States as a pledge to work together for a better world, with a target to achieve the goals by 2030. (more…)

Why sanctions are causing seafood prices to soar

The legacy of Covid and the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war have combined to create significant rises in the cost of living in most countries in the course of 2022. And the price of seafood, like that of most commodities, has surged. However, there are still options for sourcing sustainable seafood without breaking the bank.

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Pittman Seafoods wins award at 2022 MSC Sustainable Seafood Awards

In our newsletter on Sustainable Seafood Week, we highlighted our sustainable approach. Winning the Best Belgian Supplier category in our sector at the MSC Sustainable Seafood Awards underscores this once again. The awards were hosted in our country for the first time this year.The MSC awards are a boost for companies striving hard to improve their sustainability every day. Naturally, we at Pittman Seafoods are very happy to be recognized in this way. (more…)

Why fish is so important to global food security

Food is essential to human life. As such, it must be provided to consumers everywhere in sufficient quantities in sustainable, stable and resilient ways. And yet, according to the latest estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO), contained in its report The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021, between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020 – as many as 161 million more than in 2019, while nearly 2.37 billion people didn’t have access to adequate food that year – an increase of 320 million people in just one year. 
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What are Recirculation Aquaculture Systems and why all the interest?

Recirculation Aquaculture Systems (RAS) has become a very hot topic in seafood circles in recent times. Essentially referring to the commercial farming of fish and other aquatic species in intensive, closed-containment production facilities, it’s actually a concept that’s been around for several years. What’s different today is that the RAS ventures being talked about and invested in are extremely sophisticated, high-tech food production systems. (more…)

What are harmful algal blooms and what can be done to address them?

Algae are simple plants that live in seas and freshwater bodies, and which range from microscopic, single-celled organisms to large seaweeds. As unthreatening as  they might seem , if algae are allowed to grow out of control,  their colonies can have toxic or harmful effects on very large populations of fish, shellfish, marine mammals and birds, and even people. (more…)

Atlantic and Pacific cod – what’s the difference?

Asked to name a whitefish, many of us will immediately think of cod. And understandably so. Cod is a hugely popular fish with consumers the world over. The inherent snow-white flesh and gentle flavour of cod fillets are highly prized in a wide variety of dishes and cuisines and appreciated everywhere from northern Europe to southernmost Asia.  (more…)

Mussels: Why we should all be eating these delicious molluscs

Mussels are one of the seafood category’s true superheroes. These bivalves have contributed to the human diet for tens of thousands of years, but have probably never been more consumer-relevant than they are today. (more…)

Where global fisheries and aquaculture are expected to be in 10 years’ time

People love to eat seafood – increasingly and universally so. It’s a fact that over the course of the last six decades not a single year has passed when the total worldwide consumption of fish and shellfish hasn’t increased. While it’s true that the global population has grown considerably during this time, our per capita seafood consumption has consistently outstripped this escalation of humans as well as the consumption of all other animal protein foods and all land-farmed meat. (more…)

Sourcing the seafoods we eat has become an (even more) expensive business

Seafood is one of the world’s most widely traded food groups, with the latest estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) putting its global commerce at a record US$164 billion (approx. €139 billion) in 2018. In volume terms, this amounted to some 67 million tonnes of fish (live weight equivalent), equating to almost 38 percent of all the fish caught or farmed worldwide that year. (more…)