Humber Seafood Summit "a sell out"

By - 15th September 2014

HUNDREDS of fishing delegates are heading for the Humber this week for the biggest week in the history of the Humber Seafood industry.

Both Grimsby and Hull are hosting major events which dovetail with each other perfectly.The Humber Seafood Summit – which is now a “sell out” – begins on Wednesday evening with a spectacular display of the tremendous range of fish and food that the area has to offer.

But before that a group called North Sea Fish (NSF) which has English (University of Hull) and Danish, Dutch and Belgian partners will be staging a two day conference at the Deep, Hull’s magnificent samarium sea life centre.Speakers include Tom Pickerel technical director at Selfish and Roost Galliard, project manager of North Sea Fish in the Netherlands.

Other speakers include Jonathan Banks of Jonathan Banks Associates UK Ltd who will explain what can be done to help the supermarket shopper when buying fish, and Mike Mitchell, Technical and Social Responsibility Director for Young’s Seafood who will talk about the seafood industry in the Humber region. Simon Dwyer managing director of Grimsby based Sea Consultants and who is involved with both events, said the Hull conference was an important addition to the Humber’s status as the seafood centre of Britain.

Many of the delegates at the North Sea Conference will no doubt be heading straight across the Humber to Grimsby for the Seafood Summit which is now in its fifth year. The conference is now fully booked.

The summit is attracting a number of leading speakers on the theme of “Feeding the Nation: Supply and Efficiency” The conference, which includes speakers on aquaculture, will set out the opportunities and challenges for seafood in a constrained world. For the first time senior fishing figures from Iceland, including the country’s fisheries minister and its ambassador to the UK, will be there. Truly a big occasion for Grimsby and the Humber.

Project manager Julie Snowden of Selfish said: “The event brings together a panel of respected industry and national government speakers and delegates from across Europe.It also draws interest from key people in the distributors, processors and retailers sector of the UK seafood industry.

The summit comes less than two weeks after Grimsby welcomed a large Canadian seafood delegation who are looking to increase cross-Atlantic trade when a new free trade deal with the EURO, including Britain, is sealed and tariffs are removed. Representative of over a dozen Canadian seafood companies with a $500-million collective turnover including giants such as Clearwater Seafood’s, were in Grimsby which Simon Dwyer of Sea described as a highly important development for the port.

Welcoming the group, he told the delegation that Grimsby was already importing seafood from across the world. The strength of the Grimsby Fish Market was also stressed and he said fish could easily be flown in from Canada’s eastern seaboard to Humberside Airport which is only a few miles from Grimsby.