A new organization has emerged as “a strong voice for free and fair trade in seafood products”: the American Seafood Distributors Association (ASDA).
Consisting of companies that import, distribute, wholesale, and market seafood through restaurant and retail operations, the newly reorganized trade association has emerged as the voice of those who derive their living from the free trade of seafood, says its new president, Wally Stevens.
Stevens, president and chief operating officer of the Boston MA-based seafood marketing and distribution operation, Slade Gorton & Co Inc, predicts that ASDA's advocacy for the American businesses that depend on freely and fairly traded seafood products will make it a powerful voice for a range of United States companies that depend on imports. A membership recruitment drive is now underway.
Structured as a nonprofit trade association and affiliated with the National Fisheries Institute, ASDA will advocate uniformity and certainty in rules governing trade of seafood products. It will monitor and address trade issues as they apply to particular seafood products, as well as serve as an information clearinghouse for its members as well as consumers.
Membership is open to all business with a vested interest in the free and fair trade of seafood. To learn more about ASDA, phone Stevens at 703-524-8880, or visit the ASDA web site at www.freetradeinseafood.org/.
