I’m writing to you in light of our latest investigation, which concerns abuses in the Chinese squid fishing industry, and a link we’ve discovered between companies engaged in abuses and your supply chain.

Import records show that PanaPesca USA has received multiple shipments of squid from Zhejiang Industrial Group, a Chinese seafood processing company. It is majority-owned by Zhejiang Shengda Ocean, the beneficial owner of a squid ship that dropped a dead crew member at the port of Montevideo, Uruguay, in January 2019.

Two other vessels under the same ownership have a history of disabling th…

PanaPesca holds the suppliers of our seafood to the highest of standards by demanding that our product is procured in a safe, environmentally conscious, and socially responsible way.

To ensure these standards are achieved, we continually monitor our supply chain from the source so that we achieve the consistent performance our customers expect of our products. This process includes unannounced spot-checks of our suppliers around the world by PanaPesca’s own employees and audits of these production facilities by internationally recognized third- party food safety inspection organizations.

Amo…

Hi Ian: You can read the language below from PanaPesca, but the net is that Zhejiang Industrial Group is only PanaPesca’s exporter NOT their supplier. That would be De Lai Men. There is documentation which backs this up, only the company doesn’t want their receipts posted on any site or in any story. As a result, PanaPesca is asking the Outlaw Ocean Project and The Boston Globe to not include their name in the piece that has posted and is printing. Please let me know your response and if you have any questions. Thank you, T.J.”

In the same email from TJ Winick, he provided the following state…

Thank you again for engaging with us on this topic. We also appreciate your phone call on October 13, 2023. In that phone call you apologized for having not replied to our initial set of questions that we emailed to PanaPesca on March 13, 2023. You also explained in the phone call that someone on PanaPesca’s side was not watching the relevant email inbox as they should have been. PanaPesca’s subsequent written responses are helpful. However, they leave many things in need of clarification. Below we offer some additional context and more questions that we hope to get answered.

Firstly, there…

Dear Mr. Urbina,

We are writing on behalf of PanaPesca in response to your October 15, 2023 email.

We first want to thank you and your organization for publicizing and sounding the alarm about serious abuses on board Chinese fishing vessels and in Chinese processing plants. As we have seen in recent days, your reporting is proving to be a significant catalyst to much-needed reforms.

We have provided below additional information you have requested. As you will see, for many years PanaPesca has been taking steps to ensure that none of its product is caught on the vessels nor processed at th…

Hi Louis,

Thank you for your email and for PanaPesca’s continued engagement on the issues raised in our investigation. Some points, however, remain unclear and your email has raised further questions for us about PanaPesca’s supply chain.

1. You say that PanaPesca has sourced Dosidicus Gigas from “Peruvian local companies.” Can you clarify what you mean by this? Do these local companies get their seafood from ships that are flagged only to Peru, or ships flagged to other nations, including China? Are any of these Peruvian companies Chinese-owned?

2. You say that you have sourced Todarodes P…

Dear Mr. Urbina,

We are writing on behalf of PanaPesca USA in response to your October 24 email, which responded to our October 19 email.

PanaPesca has sourced Dosidicus Gigas raw material from local Peruvian companies which are not Chinese-owned, to the best of PanaPesca’s knowledge. Those Peruvian companies, in turn, source the seafood from local fishing boats.

While you state that the Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) covered a wide region, PanaPesca’s participation in the FIP only involved sourcing products from local, in-shore boats.

The six packing lists PanaPesca provided to The…

Mr. Helbling,

Thanks again for continuing to engage with us. It's much appreciated. Many of your answers help clarify things and we will be sure to publish them as part of the dialogue. On your note, we want to make two important clarifying points.

First, we describe Panapesca USA on our website as an "importer" of products from Zhejiang Industrial Group. This, I believe, you concede, is accurate. Second, you state that Zhejiang Industrial Group supplied raw squid to De Lai Men for processing. It is important to note the issues with Zhejiang Industrial Group derive from its sourcing of raw u…

Mr. Urbina,

Thank you for the quick response this morning, as I am responding in kind, as this should close any outstanding issues.

It is important to note that we are/were not an “importer” of products from Zhejiang Industrial. All PanaPesca product was sourced from De Lai Mein and Zhejiang Industrial was simply the invoicing arm. We would need to correct this, as this is a critical distinction for PanaPesca.

Finally, raw material has never been sourced from the vessels that you have exposed, from Zhejiang Industrial. Neither PanaPesca nor De Lai Mein should be included or involved in the…

Mr. Helbling,

Thank you for your response to our previous email and questions. I can sense from your recent reply that you are ready to bring the discussion to a close. I certainly understand as the interactions are time consuming and we are genuinely trying to be respectful of your time. We too are eager to finish up the discussion on this subject so we can turn to other topics. We can only do so, however, when we fully understand the terms and replies. And, unfortunately, some of your wording and the distincts you are making still remain unclear to us.

First, you state that PanaPesca has n…