Contrasting trends in the Northeast United States groundfish and scallop processing industries

Abstract

In the northeast United States, groundfish landings have declined almost continually since 1983. Fresh groundfish processors have redeployed their marketing capital by substituting other seafood products in place of regional groundfish and expanding into different markets. Meanwhile, northeast U.S. Atlantic sea scallop landings sharply increased starting in 1998, peaked in 2004, remained relatively constant until declining in 2013 and 2014. In order to leverage their favorable access to increased landings, scallop processors invested in development of new products, such as individually quick frozen (IQF) scallops, and invested in marketing activities to attract new customers, including those located in foreign nations. This behavior is consistent with Montgomery and Wernerfelt's theory of diversification in response to excess capacity of firm-specific resources and investments in product development and marketing in firm specific resources. Price and quantity indicators were used to examine the effects of shifting landings and composition of landings on exvessel values. These indicators show that declines in groundfish exvessel values were driven by declining quantities, which is consistent with processors substituting other products rather than biding up exvessel prices. Increases in scallop exvessel values were driven by both increasing prices for all sizes and by increasing quantities for large scallops, which is consistent with investment in marketing for larger scallops.