Hawaiian retailers have one year to label the tuna used in their ahi sashimi, poke, and sushi, so that consumers will know whether they are buying locally caught fish. Ahi refers to yellowfin and bigeye, both species are caught by the US longline fleet in Hawaii.

Last week, Hawaiian Governor Josh Green signed five bills about food, agriculture, and biosecurity. One was the bill that prohibits the sale of raw processed ahi by retailers without indicating the country where the ahi was landed on the label. “The health and resiliency of our agricultural lands and producers are not just vital – they are the very foundation of Hawaii’s well-being and future,” Green said in a statement, after signing the bills. Legislators have been demanding stricter labelling requirements for imported raw ahi tuna. One of their main arguments was that imported tuna is often carbon dioxide-treated, unlike fish from Hawaii fisheries.

Seafood company Culimer USA is rebranded as OddiSea SuperFrozen. The brand offers bluefin, bigeye, albacore, and skipjack from MSC fisheries in its sushi products sold in North America. The New Jersey-based company said the change was made to “respond to growing US consumer concerns about the management of our oceans, the origins of our seafood, and the purity of the process,” thus leading to an increased demand for transparent seafood supply chains.

In the press statement, the company claimed that SuperFrozen technology “is the only” method to perfectly preserve tuna without the use of any additives, chemicals, or smoke. All other processes manipulate the product. Michael McNicholas, Oddisea’s CEO, explained that, “with the creation of Oddisea SuperFrozen, we are committed to maintaining this path for the highest possible benchmark for product quality, safety, and traceability.”

The 103rd IATTC Annual Meeting will be held from September 1 to 5 in Panama, with the prime focus on marine conservation and sustainable fisheries management in the EPO, according to the Aquatic Resources Authority of Panama (ARAP). It stated that the meeting “will bring together 20 countries and more than a dozen non-governmental organizations, 250 observers, and 200 online participants.”

Some of the highlights at the 102nd IATTC annual meeting, which was held last September in this Central Amaerican nation, included extending the current conservation measures for tropical tuna for another two years and the adoption of interim standards for electronic monitoring. The venue for the event is yet to be announced.