‘Give us a call’: Fisheries Protective Co-op welcomes outside buyers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday March 25th, 2024
The Fisheries Protective Co-operative FPC) welcomes outside buyers interested in purchasing fish from the province’s inshore fleet and invites such companies to contact the co-op to line up supply.
“Give us a call,” says Ryan Cleary, spokesman for the FPC’s interim board. “The more competition the merrier to deliver the best possible price to our enterprise owners and break the power of the cartel.”
On March 15th, following demonstrations outside Confederation Building in St. John’s, the provincial government initiated an application process for outside buyers, starting with the soon-to-be opened snow crab fishery.
“Government policy, which to this point has resulted in the absence of free and open competition, is being reversed as a result of last week’s agreement with the protest movement,” says Merv Wiseman, who also sits on the FPC’s interim board.
“The FPC intends to aggressively pursue any partnerships and/or collaborations that will open up as a result of the new open-for-business policy.”
The FPC is a for-profit co-operative incorporated in February 2024 to protect and advance the economic interests of licensed independent inshore enterprise owners.
Not yet having its own fish processing licenses/plant, the Co-op has made attempts to hire an existing processor in the province to process the millions of pounds of snow crab quota held by co-op members, but with no luck.
A founding convention for the FPC is planned for the coming months, at which point a board of directors of inshore enterprise owners will be elected from around the province. (See fpcnl.ca for more information.)
DFO announced the 2024 snow crab quota Monday for Newfoundland and Labrador. The quota has been set at 57,586 tonnes, a 5.2% increase from 2023.
Contact Ryan Cleary 709 682 4862
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