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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 7
March 2008
Canastra brothers ready to open Boston Seafood Display Auction
BOSTON, MA – The Canastra brothers are ready to make a big investment in the future of the New England fishing industry by replicating their successful Whaling City Seafood Display Auction in Boston.
“It’s going to benefit buyers and fishermen,” said Richie Canastra. “Buyers will have quicker and easier access to the product, which will reduce their costs. Those cost savings can go to buy the best quality fish.”
Added Raymond Canastra, “This will bring more buyers and that will help the boats with better pricing.”
In mid-February, construction was underway on a cooler building in the seafood processing district in the Massachusetts Port Authority’s Marine Terminal.
The district is located down Northern Ave. east of the revitalized Boston Fish Pier and in the neighborhood of literally dozens and dozens of processing and distribution companies, including North Coast Seafoods and Legal Seafoods.
The Boston Seafood Display Auction will operate like the Whaling City auction in New Bedford, which the Canastras opened in 1994. However, most of the fish displayed in Boston will be trucked in from other ports rather than offloaded directly.
The Canastras were in the process of setting up offloading stations through agreements with companies in Gloucester, Provincetown, Chatham, and in Maine. They also were arranging for an offloading station in Point Judith, RI, although that fish will be trucked to the New Bedford auction site.
Once the fish is delivered to Boston, auction workers will set it up for early morning viewing by seafood company inspectors. The auction will begin at 6 am in concert with the New Bedford auction.
Following the end of the auction, “The Boston buyers will get their fish in minutes,” Raymond Canastra said.
Online bidding
One of the factors making this expansion possible is the Whaling City auction’s shift to a live interactive Internet format, which began in January.
Buyers now will be able to log on to the auction from their offices or homes and bid on the auction with a few keystrokes on their computers. Everyone logged on can see the bids as they’re typed in.
Boats that sell their fish on the auction also will have passwords so they can access the online bidding process and see the prices paid for their products. Businesses that aren’t part of the auction will be able to view the action for an as-yet-to-be-determined annual fee.
The auction uses a counting-up system with the Canastras setting the opening prices. The product posts on the screen and the price ticks up. The last buyer in wins the bid.
“I can see who is buying,” said Richie Canastra, who runs the actual auctions. “The buyers can’t see who they’re bidding against.”
The price to participate in the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction is, for fish, 3 cents a pound for the boat and 12 cents a pound for the buyer. For scallops, it’s 15 cents a pound for the buyer and no charge to the boat. The fee structure may be different for fish displayed on the Boston auction floor.
The new interactive auction involves a high-security, state-of-the-art computer/Internet system that is housed offsite in a specialized facility in Marlborough, MA.
The system is fully supported by professional computer technicians to ensure reliability.
“We have the geeks,” Richie Canastra said with a laugh.
Fishing’s future
The Whaling City Seafood Display Auction handled 22 million pounds of fish and scallops in 2007. The Canastras expect the addition of the Boston Seafood Display Auction will result in a significant increase in the amount of product they handle altogether.
They also expect the number of participating buyers to grow from the current 60 up to around 80, and the number of vessels participating, which was around 265 a few years ago, to increase by about 30%.
Between the two display facilities, the Canastras hope to deliver a continuous supply of seafood to local processing and distribution companies and, by doing so, guarantee a market for the fish and scallops harvested by New England fishermen well into the future.
“There are a lot more fish in the ocean than people are saying there are,” said Richie Canastra. “Our concern is, when we’re allowed to catch them, will the market be there? With our auction system, we’ll help to create a more constant supply that the buyers can depend on.”
The target opening date for the new HACCP-certified Boston Seafood Display Auction facility is March 2008.
Lorelei Stevens
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