That would be me guess also - caught in Iceland on a Chinese registry boat. And, yes, a lot of haddock is processed quickly after catch & then flash frozen on the boat. Fishing boats are out for a long time. The fish is much fresher processed on the boat than waiting days in the ship's hold to return to port, off-load, sell, & make its way to your local fishmonger.

/tricia

I always look to see where seafood comes from in the supermarket. Seems almost all shrimp is coming from halfway around the world. I generally pass, even if the price is really good. Haven't had any "bad" shrimp and might just be my imagination, but it seems to have less flavor and is sometimes a bit soft?!?

A while ago, supermarket had Phillip's refrigerated crab meat on sale at great prices. The "good stuff" can easily be $20-25/lb and this was seriously less. After considering that I could make several large and lots of small crab cakes out of a lb... I splurged. When I got it home, looked at can to see if it had any interesting recipe to consider. Discovered that Phillip's... well known in Maryland area... comes from half way around the world, too?!?

The more I think about it the more it doesn't make any sense. Chinese fishing boats operating in Iceland? Do they freeze the fish, ship to China and then thaw and process and then freeze again and ship to the US? The whole thing sounds crazy.

However, we had them grilled for dinner last night and they were delicious. Some of the best haddock I've had outside of Great Britain, particularly in Edinburgh, my fave fish and chips spot.

When I consider how poluted some waters are, and then consider how quickly the ocean currents travel (one year and we've already got tsunami debris hitting the west coast) I find it hard to believe that there's any clean ocean left. Just a matter of how bad. I love fish but wonder if any of it is particularly good for you anymore.

klseiverd - If you read the Phillips story, they're the ones who pretty much pioneered crab farming over in the Asian seas.

Well the whole thing sounds fishy!! From the best I can tell from some Internet research, the fish are frozen in container ships, shipped to CHINA for processing, which probably means thawing at least a little bit, and then refreezing. Then shipped to the US. So they are hardly "fresh fish." But they are cheap!

Odd, when you consider how many people in the fishing industry are out of work here in the US and in Iceland, (and in Great Britain for that matter), which is a whole lot more direct route!! There are companies in the US that buy Icelandic haddock direct and proccess it here in the US, but I doubt that's going to be the cheapie haddock like I got at Wegmans.

And then there's US Haddock, which comes from the Atlantic coast right near me. But we just don't appreciate our water out here, and these fisheries are pollution contaminated, habitat degraded and overfished, and I don't see people waking up and suddenly deciding to make clean water and fish habitat a priority. In fact, I see the opposite trend, more degradation and waste, reversing decades of progress. So eat up folks, while you still can!

I buy North American Wild salmon that is processed in China. (or on a Chinese boat?) It's cheap, tastes good and I have no idea if it's slowly killing me. Probably no more than anything else I eat since I rarely buy organic - too expensive :-(
And restaurant food....99% bad...

I always try to read the labels, but the labels are difficult to decipher anymore. Something might be packaged in China, be a product of Iceland and be distributed by a company from the USA. It might say "Product of Iceland" or "Product of the USA" or something else entirely.

I swear, they do it on purpose so we can't figure out what the heck they're doing!

Annie

The sea-frozen fillets of Icelandic cod and haddock are generally cleaned and trimmed aboard the trawlers and packed in large blocks that are suitable for restaurants.

My guess is that the blocks have been shipped to China to be broken up and the fillets individually packaged.

No defrosting needs to be involved. We used to do this for the local market when I was working in a fish-processing plant here in Iceland. We had a machine that would break apart the blocks into individual fillets without damaging them and then we would pack 4 to 6 fillets (depending on size) into plastic bags for the local supermarkets.

Sending the fish all the way to China for this seems a bit extreme, but it might be due to anything from middlemen to lower costs or import tax rates.

Everything is processed in Shenzhen. Everything. Publix, for instance, has a store brand of organic canned vegetables and makes much of how they are locally grown. That is true, but the corn that grew in Pahokee went to China to get into the can.

I have never understood the economics of this and I resent food that is more well-traveled than I am, but that's how it works now.

ETA Your wild-caught Alaska Salmon was almost certainly filleted there, too, whether it admits it like Bumblebeez's or not.

Is this any help?

https://usa.oceana.org/sustainable-seafood-guide

Here, the fishmonger will tell you what's in season, local and sustainable.

Ah how I miss my local fishmonger! I actually had one when I lived in Allentown PA. Now I live inland in the Midwest, so no more fresh seafood and the good stuff is expensive. I do get a lot of lake perch and fresh Great Lakes fish in season. Fish is now a treat, other than canned stuff.