Missed ComFish Alaska? Well, Catch the Current has you covered!
Undercurrent News‘ very own Jacob Resneck joins the podcast this week to share some of the biggest highlights from the industry event that took place in Kodiak last week, including updates regarding how decisions made by the administration of US president Donald Trump are impacting NOAA surveys, and, of course, the latest on the trade war with China.
Plus, Charlotte Langley, the founder of Langley Foods and tinned seafood brand Nice Cans, joins Catch the Current to talk about her growth from Scout Canning to the launch of her sexy new line of canned sardines.
Listen on YouTube below:
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Don’t have time to listen? You’re missing out on the fun! Find a transcript of episode 14 of Catch the Current below:
Amanda Buckle (AB): You’re listening to Catch the Current, the coolest seafood podcast out there, from the team at Undercurrent News, your trusted source for industry news, data, and prices. I’m Amanda Buckle, flying solo this week as my regular co-host Lorin Castiglione enjoys spring break. But I won’t be alone for too long.
This week on Catch the Current, I’ve got two special guests joining — one being Charlotte Langley, the CEO and president of Langley Foods and its new tinned seafood line, Nice Cans.
This interview was so much fun. I’m so excited for you to listen to it and I’m counting down until I can try these cans for myself. But before I play Charlotte’s interview, I’ve got Undercurrent News‘ very own Jacob Resneck on the line. Jacob just got back from Alaska, where he spent a couple of days covering ComFish from Kodiak.
Jacob was responsible for keeping the live blog going during ComFish, so he’s the best person for all the scoops from the event, from tariffs to NOAA.
Alright, so Jacob — gonna toss you a softball here. In your opinion, what was the big headline to come out of the three-day event?
Jacob Resneck (JR): ComFish is interesting. It’s the major seafood expo for commercial fishing in Alaska, and it’s a little different than other trade shows that I’ve been to, where there are marketing and salespeople.
It’s not like people are trying to do a lot of deals on the side or things like that. It’s really set up more for the commercial harvesters to hear the science, hear from their political representatives, and also talk to the people who represent them in Congress and the state government, ask questions, and have a direct interface between Alaska’s pretty middle-class commercial harvesting fleet and the regulators and the policymakers. So it’s a very egalitarian affair. A lot of people in flannel and rubber boots and things like that talking to the representatives working in Washington, DC, and Juneau, Alaska.
So you learn a lot. It’s kind of a big part of ComFish — for the regulators and the policymakers, there’s a lot of listening involved to what the concerns are from the fleet and from processors of what they need for the upcoming season. It’s sandwiched right when the “A” pollock season is winding down, but before the processors and the commercial harvesters are gearing up for Alaska’s storied wild salmon runs.
So it’s just kind of a little calm before the summer storm.
AB: But this year, the timing of the event is even more important considering what’s going on in the US right now with tariffs and with President Trump going after different agencies, including NOAA. What was the big headline to come out of the event? What did everyone want to talk about while they were there?
JR: Well, there’s so much uncertainty in the sector. I know that’s not a big surprise for people who are listening, but in the US, Alaska is like the poster child for vulnerable seafood sectors. About two-thirds of its seafood is exported overseas, and of the top-valued US seafood products in the US, the top three that go to China come from Alaska. We’re talking about headed and gutted flatfish, headed and gutted Pacific salmon, mostly pink salmon and also fishmeal.
AB: And the tariff on China right now is 145%. That’s the starting point from Trump.
JR: Not a good look for Alaska right now. So there’s two different things going on here.
We’re talking about salmon for a second. The Alaska salmon industry, it’s a wild stock, it comes fast and furious. For a century it was canned. You know, that’s how you bring this fresh fish in. You get it, you preserve it, you can put it on the shelf. But the US market has kind of moved away from canned salmon.
Salmon being canned. Credit: Marine Stewardship Council.
There was a slight recovery around the pandemic when people wanted to stock their pantries. But for the most part, people have gone away from that. But the way that the salmon industry was able to make it economical to do all that processing is they would head and gut it, freeze it, then send it overseas for secondary processing.
And China really has the most capacity for that. So as they moved away from canning and they send a lot of salmon to China. Now the tariff situation, as most of our listeners know, if it’s reimported back to the US, the tariffs would only apply to the value added on that.
But a lot of the salmon that Alaska exports is for Asian markets. And with 145%, you know, that’s just not economical and it’s not like the Chinese customers don’t have a choice. They can import Russian, they can buy Russian salmon. The Russian pink salmon is a really good product. But that’s about it.
So there’s a lot of trepidation right now in Alaska. What are we going to do with all these pinks that come in, where are our markets going to be? They put a brave face on it and talk about how it’s a beautiful fish and more Americans should be eating it. And that’s probably true.
But the fact is, to have the capacity to process this fish and to get it ready for the American consumer would require a major recapitalization. It’s not something you can just stand up in a couple of months. It’s not a quick switch. So they don’t know what’s going to happen. They don’t have this ability right now to do this in the US. They have to send it out to China.
We walked through processing plants and we’ve got an upcoming story about that, about how Alaska processors are very good at what they do, which is processing fish really quickly as the volumes come in.
A worker cleans the processing lines at a Pacific Seafood Group plant in Kodiak, Alaska on April 16, 2025. (Photo by Brian Venua)
But there’s not a lot of slack in the system. There’s not a lot of cold storage capacity, for example. So if there aren’t immediate buyers for this fish, no one really knows where it’s going to go.
AB: When you said uncertainty, that is the definition right there. There’s a lot of uncertainty right there. And now ComFish had quite a few politicians in attendance. Were any of them able to give some reassurance that they’re working with the Trump administration to find a resolution?
JR: So one of the two that appeared in person was US senator Lisa Murkowski. She came to Kodiak and she walked the dock. She met with fishermen. She met with the press. She toured around and her staff has been working really hard to get clarity on what’s happening with NOAA, the agency that does the science-based fisheries management.
Behind the scenes, they’ve expressed frustration of how difficult it is to get clear answers on what’s going on with the agency. OK, yes, there’ll be cuts. How many cuts? To which programs, etcetera … That’s something they’re working on really hard.
You know, there’s an undercurrent supporting all this. For example, the continuing resolution that’s funding the US federal government right now doesn’t go into detail on how the money should be spent. So the agencies have broad authority. They just have these giant slush funds to spend as they want. And that means money for things like stock surveys or grants that fund state fisheries management, things like that. None of that is in the bill.
So it all requires good faith and a relatively young administration that’s purged a lot of their technocratic staff to keep things working. So there’s a lot going on behind the scenes to make sure the lights stay on for US fisheries management — especially in somewhere like Alaska, where so much of the fisheries management is in the exclusive economic zone.
AB: I actually had a question there, because when we were in Boston for Seafood Expo North America, NOAA representatives didn’t show up to a panel that they were supposed to speak at. So was anybody from NOAA in attendance?
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employees were prevented from traveling to Kodiak, Alaska for the 46th annual ComFish held April 15-17, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Resneck/UCN)
JR: We had three excellent presentations from NOAA staff. Two of those were virtual because they weren’t allowed to travel.
The travel restrictions were such that they weren’t allowed to come from Juneau, which in Alaska terms, is not that far. It’s a couple of quick commercial flights. The only NOAA official who was able to come has his lab is across town in Kodiak.
He joked like, “Yes, I was allowed to cross this little bridge that divides a part of downtown Kodiak.” He came down and talked about the latest in crab surveys. But the NOAA’s top science officials who run the Alaska Fishery Science Center attended virtually and they didn’t have a lot of hard answers. They weren’t not being coy. It was pretty clear that they were delivering the information that they could. But there is, again, I keep going about this uncertainty of not just what kind of cuts, but how many cuts and what agencies.
I mean, I’ll give you a concrete example. There was a lot of questions about the upcoming stock surveys, the trawl surveys, which is required for the pollock fisheries, the crab fisheries in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, Gulf of Alaska. Fortunately, one of the pollock surveys in the Gulf of Alaska already was able to go this this year.
But the top NOAA official — and we pressed him on this — he honestly couldn’t give any concrete assurances that the other trawl surveys are going forward. And that’s something that Lisa Murkowski’s office, as well as a number of industry groups, have expressed concern about at the highest levels. These stock surveys have to go forward for Magnuson-Stevens Act science-based fishery management to function.
We’re just coming out of pollock “A.” They’ve got the survey for pollock “B,” but this would be for looking forward to next year. They can’t have too much gap in the surveys because that would expose them to all kinds of liabilities. You’ve got to make sure they don’t overfish.
AB: Now this is something these politicians have to keep on top of along with everything else going on. But the thing is that you don’t have to keep on top of this, because that’s
