Louisiana Foods Fish Fact for:
SCALLOPS

One trend seems to be prevailing in the scallop market: Scallops are getting smaller. The grant sea scallops that used to fill seafood platters are getting harder to find outside of upscale fish markets and restaurants. That's opened the door to the smaller, imported bay scallops that rule today's trade. Witness: Canadian sea scallop exports to the U.S. fell more than 300 tons to 8,671 tons in 1994, while China doubled its exports of bays to 13,099 tons. Meanwhile, New England's scallopers lost a chunk of their season and crew sizes to management restrictions this year, and some boats have moved south to Cape May, N.J. where the sea scallops are also smaller in search of blue-eyed bivalve booty.

Species Specifics
  • Out of nearly 400 species of scallops found worldwide, only about a dozen are harvested commercially. In the U.S., it's almost all seas, Placopecten magellanicus, bays, Argopecten irradians, and calicos, Argopecten gibbus.
  • Scallop, Argopecten purpuratus, farming in Chile has taken off in the 1990s, with production hitting 4,583 tons in 1993. Production is expected to top 37,000 tons by the year 2000.
  • A new law in France states that only products made from scallops of the Pecten family can carry the coveted "Saint Jacques" label. This will likely mean lost market share for North American producers, who harvest no Pecten species.
  • According to FAO, the U.S. harvest of calico scallops plummeted from more than 120,000 tons (live weight) in 1988 to just 262 tons in 1992. Catches have bounced back somewhat in the last couple of years to about 2,400 tons in 1993 and nearly 3,000 tons in 1994.


The above information is from the Seafood Leader Vol. 15, No. 5.
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