Market Report

Hot summer days are a great time for cold seafood salads.

Small coldwater shrimp, which are caught off the Pacific Northwest as well as the Canadian Maritimes, are a great buy at this time of year. For a few dollars, these pre-cooked, sweet-tasting shrimp can turn a salad into a healthy entrée. Or try some Simply Seafood keta salmon in a salad. Put an herb rub on the salmon, broil it and flake it on a salad. It’s great, healthy eating.

Albacore are running off the Pacific Northwest coast all summer and a big catch has pushed prices down to their lowest level in several years.

Fresh tuna is also a great addition to a salad. Just season it, sear it quickly and slice it. Albacore are running off the Pacific Northwest coast all summer and a big catch has pushed prices down to their lowest level in several years. Fresh ahi, the Hawaiian name for yellowfin or bigeye tuna, is still very pricey, but look for some relief later in the summer, when these migratory fish start running off Hawaii.

Speaking of pricey, Alaska halibut prices have taken yet another jump this year. Prices to the boats are at least $.50 a pound higher than last year’s record levels, which means fillets at your local seafood counter will be at least $1 a pound more than last year. If you like halibut – and who doesn’t – consider waiting until you see it on special to take some of the bite out of the higher prices.

If you’re looking for a good deal on a good fish, try and get your hands on some fresh trap-caught bluefish. Fishermen off the Northeast land these voracious fish in the summer when they migrate close to shore to feed on menhaden. High in oil content, they are excellent for barbecuing. Late in the summer is also a good time to try Atlantic mackerel, which trap fishermen also catch. They’re another often overlooked fish that’s a good value. Like bluefish, mackerel are high in oil (think flavor!) after their summer feeding frenzy.

On the shellfish side, Canadian crabbers have had a good summer on both coasts. On the East Coast, they landed almost 200 million pounds of snow crab. Although wholesale prices are up about $1 a pound over last summer, snow crab is still a relatively good value. That’s not the case for Dungeness crab, however. Even though crabbers in British Columbia had a good summer, there’s not enough additional production to make up for the shortage that resulted from the very disappointing catch off the West Coast this winter. Fishing for king crab in the Barents Sea, which is north of Norway and Russia, was down substantially from last spring. In spite of a jump in price, some retailers are still offering good deals on king crab to drive traffic into their stores. If you see a special on big king crab legs for $10 a pound or less, snap it up.

In spite of the headaches with Chinese shrimp, there’s plenty of shrimp being produced by farms in Latin America and Southeast Asia, so prices for small and medium sized white shrimp, the most commonly farmed species, have held steady at historically low levels. That’s not the case for black tiger shrimp, however, which can be grown to larger sizes. Since many farms in Asia switched to white shrimp from tigers, the decline in tiger harvests has driven their wholesale price up almost a dollar a pound over last year. This summer, large shell-on tiger tails (20 pieces per pound) were wholesaling for twice as much as smaller white shrimp (40 to 50 pieces per pound). So when it comes to shrimp, think small for value.