Blue Harvest Fisheries in New Bedford has closed down all its fishing operations.
The New Bedford Light is reporting the shutdown comes after the company spent the last five years selling off assets in an apparent effort to stay afloat.
But Blue Harvest, which was founded in 2015, also acquired assets during that period. In 2020, the company bought 12 vessels and 27 permits from the holdings of Carlos Rafael, the fishing mogul who was convicted of fraud and tax evasion.
Jared Auerbach, the CEO of the seafood distributor Red’s Best says Blue Harvest is huge -- owning a quarter of the region’s groundfish fleet. Red’s Best was a customer of Blue Harvest.
“This is a significant portion of the New England groundfish fishery that is now tied to the dock,” Auerbach told CAI.
“My hope is that these folks can get…back out fishing.”
Auerbach says he doesn’t know exactly what went wrong at Blue Harvest, but he thinks regulations had a role. He believes the current law isn’t being carried out in the spirit in which it was intended.
“The Magnusen-Stevens act wasn’t written so cod could die a peaceful death surrounded by their family on George’s Bank,” he said. “The Magnusen-Stevens act is there so we can kill cod and eat them.”
Blue Harvest did not return an email requesting comment. No one answered the phone at the company headquarters in New Bedford.
