Most people are unaware that the yarns and fabrics that make up our carpets, clothing, car seats, mattresses, even mop heads, are coated with chemicals and metals such as copper, silver and aluminum that act as fire retardants, odor preventors, antifungals and anti-microbials.
Now, crab shells from Alaska are providing the same safeguards in a bio-friendly way.
The metals and chemicals are being replaced by all-natural Tidal-Tex liquid treatments derived from chitosan molecules found in the exoskeletons of crab shells.
The bio-shift stems from a partnership between Leigh Fibers, of South Carolina, and Tidal Vision, the proprietary maker of the crab-based product that it began producing in a 20-foot Conex van in Juneau six years ago. The company, which now operates near Seattle and has 22 full-time employees in three production facilities, expects to put up to 60 people to work within two years.
In July, Tidal Vision opened its newest facility within Leigh Fibers’ headquarters, bringing its Earth-friendly technology into the heart of the U.S. textile industry. Leigh Fibers is one of North America’s largest textile waste and by-product reprocessing businesses that dates back to 1866 and now serves 25 countries.
Most of the raw product comes from snow crab and red king crab delivered to St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea, where they are processed into frozen leg clusters. The shells are transported to the mainland, where they are put through Tidal Vision’s zero-waste, proprietary extraction process that produces chitosan in a flake form and is then made into the ready-to-use liquid Tidal-Tex product.
Tidal Vision CEO Craig Kasberg said it provides the same fabric protections as the manmade agents at far less cost.
“Our costs are minimal. They’re basically just tied to the logistics and some of the freezer storage costs but it’s nearly a free input material,” he said.
All crustaceans have chitosan, a polysaccharide that is the second most abundant organic compound in the world next to cellulose.
“All these heavy metals need to be mined and refined, and then modified into these metal-based chemicals. Whereas we’re taking an abundant and even problematic by-product from the seafood industry and with a really low-cost extraction method, producing a biochemistry solution that can provide the same properties in these industries. Our inputs are tied to a byproduct,” Kasberg said.
Tidal Vision has tested a lot of crustacean “inputs,” Kasberg said, but Alaska crab shells pack the best chitosan punch.
Tidal Vision hopes to build more partnerships and expand to other countries within the next few years.
The company also features a line of other chitosan-based products including water clarifiers and a game animal spray that prevents spoilage and keeps insects away.
Seafood scholarships
Scholarships are being offered to small and medium-sized seafood businesses to participate in helping to shape and launch a new National Seafood Council. Its mission is straightforward: to provide a unified voice for the industry to encourage Americans to eat more seafood.
A task force was formed in April, led by the Seafood Nutrition Partnership to get things underway.
“Some of the tasks include designing the governance of the National Seafood Council and the makeup and responsibilities of the board members. We want to make sure that the task force is representative of size of companies, gender, geography around the U.S. and points all along the supply chain,” said Linda Cornish, president of the partnership.
Nominations are sought from six to eight seafood-related companies whose annual revenue is less than $20 million each. The participation scholarships, backed by the Walton Family Foundation, will be a minimum of $2,500.
A National Seafood Council was created in 1987 as part of a Fish and Seafood Promotion Act but fizzled after five years. A group of more 60 U.S. fishing companies, groups and medical professionals have asked Congress to provide seed money to revive the group to develop a national seafood marketing and education program. The seafood council would eventually become industry funded, similar to other food industries.
“Seafood is probably one of the healthiest foods that people can eat, and there’s just not enough funding to get that message out,” Cornish said. “The milk industry has about $300 million a year to market their product, pork about $70 million a year, avocados about $50 million. Seafood doesn’t have that. So, for us to tell our story to the consumers in a more cohesive and unified way, we need some help to get this council started, and provide that resource to have a marketing campaign to do the same as other food groups have.”
The deadline to apply for a task force scholarship is Aug. 13. Find links at seafoodnutrition.org.
Bristol Bay breaks it
The reds are still rolling in at Bristol Bay, where a return topping 64 million has officially broken the record for all-time sockeye returns since 1893. The previous record was set in 2018, at 62.9 million fish.
“Large numbers can be hard to comprehend, so consider this,” wrote Andy Wink, executive director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association, which is funded and operated by driftnet fishermen. “If lined up nose-to-tail, this year’s Bristol Bay sockeye run would stretch on for roughly 20,000 miles, enough to encircle all the Lower 48 states … twice!”
It’s natural abundance on a truly epic scale, Wink said. “It’s important to highlight just how special the Bristol Bay salmon resource is. These records aren’t being set while overfishing. All escapement goals were met to propagate strong future runs. Despite all the bad news about environmental degradation and destruction, Bristol Bay is a shining example that healthy eco-systems can and still do still exist. It’s really an ecological treasure. We ask that state and federal government protect Bristol Bay salmon and the natural habitats that allow it to thrive.”
Processors have increased the base price at Bristol Bay to $1.25 per pound. At an average fish weight of 4.5 pounds and a catch so far at nearly 39.5 million fish, back-of-the envelope calculations put the value of the sockeye haul to fishermen so far at more than $222 million.
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