Yellowfin tuna is traded in many forms including small whole fresh fish for local wet markets, small and large frozen fish from industrial purse seiners for loining, canning and higher value specialty markets, large frozen or fresh fish from longliners and handliners, flown or shipped to high value export markets for sashimi and steaks, and lower value derived products.

Changes in yellowfin tuna supply chains are driven by strong domestic and international markets especially in Japan, USA, Europe, Indonesia and Philippines, and technology developments that have improved on-board handling of fish in order to maximize its value.

POST HARVEST

Yellowfin tuna is processed for different markets on the basis of quality, size and method of capture (see Production). In local markets, small yellowfin tuna (e.g., in India, less than 50 cm in length) is sold mainly as whole fresh fish; large fish are sold as sashimi and steaks in urban and tourist centers. In international markets, yellowfin tuna is sold as whole frozen fish, loins, fresh, chilled fish and canned and pouched fish. More yellowfin tuna is sold in cans and pouches than as fresh, frozen or other products. Nearly every part of yellowfin tuna is used during processing and little is discarded.

FRESH AND FROZEN FISH AND BYPRODUCTS

Depending on available transport options, the quality and appearance of the fish flesh will determine the price and destination. Its quality depends largely on how it is caught and handled from the moment of landing on the fishing vessel. Grading of individual fish destined for high value sashimi markets, e.g. Japan, can take place at several points in the supply chain. Adult yellowfin tuna has red or pink flesh.

The higher grades of longline caught yellowfin tuna over about 20 kg round weight is sold mostly for sashimi and fresh-chilled products such as loins or steaks. Lower grades landed in some Philippine and Indonesian ports are treated with carbon monoxide (CO) and frozen for export. The USA is a major destination for CO-treated yellowfin. Several other jurisdictions including the EU and Japan prohibit its importation.

Large distant water longliners with super freezers operating at -55^o to -60^oC supply frozen yellowfin tuna to distant markets. The whole or gilled and gutted fish are frozen within minutes of landing on the vessel to maintain optimum quality. Small and medium scale offshore and coastal longliners utilize ice or refrigerated seawater to supply fresh tuna. Fresh yellowfin is sent to major markets in the EU, Japan and the USA from offloading ports with the required air freight capacity.

Yellowfin tuna caught by handline e.g. from Indonesian, Maldivian, Vietnam and Philippine fleets, is sold fresh chilled for sashimi to major domestic and international markets or may be frozen onshore where air freight is not a good option or where some processing into secondary products e.g., steaks and saku blocks occurs Yellowfin tuna caught by longline or handline but unsuitable for export markets is sold in domestic markets. In the more eastern areas of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, purse seiners are catching increasing volumes of large yellowfin tuna, especially when fishing on non-FAD (unassociated) schools. To maximize value, the catch is often high graded by sorting on board or during transshipment, and good quality large fish sent to higher priced European (Spain, Italy) specialty markets or processed as cooked loins.

In the more eastern areas of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, purse seiners are catching increasing volumes of large yellowfin tuna, especially when fishing on non-FAD (unassociated) schools. To maximize value, the yellowfin tuna catch by purse seiners is often sorted on board or during transshipment, and good quality large fish sent to higher priced European (Spain, Italy) specialty markets. Japanese purse seiners have the ability to freeze a certain portion of their larger yellowfin and bigeye tuna catch at ultra low temperatures and sell to the lower-end sashimi market in Japan. Worldwide, a few of the newer large purse seiners are being equipped with super freezers to likewise quickly freeze and hold the large yellowfin for higher value markets. Gillnets, that are increasingly important in the Indian Ocean, e.g., Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Iran fleets, provide fresh tuna, and in the case of some vessels, frozen yellowfin tuna, to domestic and foreign markets, depending upon the quality of fish achieved. The majority of the gillnet catch, however, is thought to go to local markets or possibly canning; its quality is often poor.

Various products are utilized from the processing of lower grade large yellowfin, particularly in Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. In decreasing order of value, these products include: tuna blocks or "saku blocks" of lower grade loin tuna often used in mass-produced sushi products; cubes of flesh (from loins) that are smaller pieces than a saku block; tuna chunks of meat lower in grade than sashimi; tuna cubes or "poke" cubes; tuna scrape meat (or "naokochi" scrape) consisting of small, odd sized pieces of meat pulled from the fish skeleton; tuna belly flaps; and opercula (gill covers). Most of these products are vacuum packed in plastic bags and frozen for easy transport. Most come in two forms, either bright red due to treatment by carbon monoxide, or darker if untreated. Heads, gills and offal are often rendered and used in fish meal for fertilizers or feed, or, in some South and Southeast Asian countries, used in fish head curry dishes. Bones are usually used for extraction of calcium and protein concentrate may be recovered from wash and cooking water. Fish oil is often another important by-product. Dark meat may be used in low value canned product or petfood.

CANNED AND POUCHED TUNA

Tuna sold in cans or pouches can be transported in their final form without refrigeration and are refeered to as ambient tuna.

Canned yellowfin tuna can be legally sold as “light meat tuna,” although other species (skipjack, longtail and bigeye tuna) and even bonito can also be labelled the same way in some markets.

Caught by purse seiners, frozen small yellowfin tuna are unloaded directly to canneries or transhipped on carrier vessels. Yellowfin tuna caught by purse seine in the Western and Central Pacific and Indian Oceans is canned or loined for canning elsewhere, as is skipjack tuna, in factories in Thailand, Seychelles, Mauritius, Madagascar, Kenya, China, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Marshall Islands, American Samoa, and Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico.

At the cannery, the fish is sorted, headed and gutted, then cleaned before cooking and subsequently being processed into loins. Cooked loins may be packaged and frozen for canning elsewhere or placed into shelf-stable packages (cans or pouches) before cooking under pressure in a retort. Various additives or flavourings may be added to the cans before sealing and retorting. Tuna in pouches are more easily transported and require less packaging material than cans. Such products are slowly gaining consumer acceptance in major markets, Much of the large yellowfin tuna processed by Indian Ocean canneries is packed in the “raw pack” (tuna “au naturel” – in brine or oil) form preferred by the French market. In this method, raw fish is placed into a can, covered with brine or oil, sealed and cooked in an autoclave.

SALTED AND DRIED PRODUCTS

In the Indian Ocean, traditionally, Pakistan gillnetters supplied Sri Lanka with salted dried yellowfin tuna, but this has reduced in recent years in favour of selling to higher value markets in Iran and other Middle East countries.

In the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, yellowfin tuna is not used in salted and dried products.

COMMON MARKET NAMES

The FAO names for yellowfin tuna are: yellowfin tuna (English), thon albacore (French), and rabil (Spanish). Yellowfin tuna is also known by many local common names (e.g., see FishBase http://www.fishbase.org for lists) but, due to its large global market, is usually known also at country level as "yellowfin tuna." In the USA, the Hawaiian word for both yellowfin and bigeye tuna, "ahi," has been used as a marketing tool irrespective of fish origin and has gained general acceptance at the wholesale and retail level.

NUTRITIONAL VALUE

Yellowfin tuna is low in saturated fat and sodium and is a very good source of protein, thiamine, selenium, vitamin B6, and the health-benefitting omega-3 long-chain (containing 20 or more carbon atoms) polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Nutritional data for yellowfin tuna sourced from Australian, Eastern Pacific and Western Atlantic yellowfin tuna are as given below (per 100g of raw product):

Sources: NOAA FishWatch Pacific Yellowfin Tuna Table of Nutrition; Nichols et al. (1998),* Fishfiles (http://www.fishfiles.com.au/knowing/species/finfish/tuna-billfish/Pages/Yellowfin-Tuna.aspx)*, Burger and Gochfeld (2011) (for western Atlantic yellowfin tuna**

Top quality yellowfin tuna is desirable for use as sashimi and is also used in sushi in Japan and many other Asian countries. It is gaining popularity as sashimi and sushi in western countries where the more expensive bigeye tuna is either not available or uneconomical to use. Yellowfin is also served seared, grilled, broiled, sautéed, dried and smoked. In the Maldives and South Asian countries, it is used in several traditional products such as the cooked, smoked and sun-dried hikimas and Maldive fish.

MERCURY IN TUNA

The health and environmental risks of methylmercury accumulation in the tissues of predatory fish such as yellowfin tuna have received public and scientific attention. Methylmercury is a water soluble compound of mercury (a heavy metal) and has toxic biological impacts. The mercury content of yellowfin tuna, where it has been analysed, is generally well below the recommended Codex Alimentarius guideline (predatory fish species) of 1.0 mg mercury per kg of fish. The mercury content of yellowfin tuna varies with location, fish size and season and typically is lower than that in other tunas that are either longer lived or with higher fish diets, e.g., bigeye tuna and albacore. Large yellowfin tuna have the highest levels of mercury. In 2004 in Fiji, the average methylmercury levels in yellowfin tuna were 0.11 mg/kg.

The FAO/WHO Codex Committee on Contaminants in Food (CCCF) is reviewing the current guidelines, taking into account information on the benefits of fish consumption as well as the risks of mercury ingestion. Country and consumer specific advice needs to be specific to the risk of mercury exposure from the diet, depending on factors such as the patterns of fish consumption (types, sizes, frequency of consumption). Typically, dietary advice is given separately for children, women of child-bearing age and the general population.

In the Seychelles (Indian Ocean) where fish (including tuna) is consumed daily, a preliminary study of children to 9 years old found no consistent pattern of negative associations with prenatal methylmercury exposures. This suggested that the beneficial influence of nutrients from fish (including omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, iodine, iron, and selenium) are generally considered to have far outweighed adverse effects of methylmercury on the developing nervous system of the children. Yellowfin tuna has a high selenium content relative to its mercury content, perhaps helping mitigate the impact of mercury on human health.

TRADE AND MARKETS

In the Western and Central Pacific and Indian Oceans, yellowfin tuna is a major food commodity of political and economic importance. It is harvested in large volumes; it has a wide range of valuable products and markets; and international fishing and market access arrangements have impacts on and beyond the fisheries sector.

Price premiums, the spread of technology such as on-board ultra low temperature (ULT) freezers and availability of air transport out of certain landing ports are delivering more fresh and frozen yellowfin tuna products into high value markets. The increase in longline fishing by coastal states has improved the supply of fresh yellowfin to international markets, e.g., by air freight from Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Singapore, Mexico, Fiji, to consumer markets for fresh tuna. Major primary markets are in Japan, mostly Tokyo and Osaka, and Los Angeles in the USA. Domestic urban and tourist markets have also increased demand for fresh and frozen yellowfin tuna of an intermediate value. Small fresh fish caught by artisanal fishers also find ready outlets in local wet markets. Canned and pouched yellowfin tuna are the other major trade products.

Along with other tuna, particularly skipjack tuna, yellowfin tuna is the subject of several international market access and trade preference agreements.

In the case of canned tuna, Pacific island and Indian Ocean countries rely primarily on European and USA markets, both of which are changing. The USA canned tuna market is declining, and the European market presents challenges from regulations on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and food safety requirements. Consequently, the Pacific island countries, with their high dependence on exports, are looking to alternative markets in the Middle East, Latin America and emerging markets such as Eastern Europe. The form of traded product is also evolving, with increased exports of tuna in pouches as the pouches are easier to transport to factories in the Pacific than are empty cans.

In many OECD countries, canned yellowfin tuna products are the subject of seafood rating schemes, based mainly on the conservation policies of the rating group and its campaign principles, such as FAD-free, pole-and-line and handline-caught fish, stock sustainability rating, certificates achieved, e.g., MSC certified. To date, environmental conservation has been the main focus of ratings, but this is broadening. Several conservation and social campaigns and trade measures are exerting greater influences on tuna supply chains and markets: tuna satisfying fair trade principles, not caught by IUU fishing, caught by local producers using low impact fishing methods, and tuna produced under fair employment conditions, e.g., no human trafficking. In the case of fresh and frozen yellowfin tuna on the export markets, individual traded quantities are smaller than is the case for canned fish, and multiple pathways are used. For commodities such as derived products, such as saku blocks, cubes and scrape, internet market sites such as Alibaba appear to be gaining importance in linking sellers to buyers, often via agents. These sites also deal in non-branded and lesser brands of canned tuna.

EMPLOYMENT, SOCIAL FACTORS AND GENDER

The yellowfin supply chains, from pre-production services to consumption and waste removal, provide jobs for thousands of people, although many of these jobs are intermixed with those for other tuna and even non-tuna species. In 2008 in the Western and Central Pacific, nearly 10 times as many local jobs for Pacific island people were in shore-based processing (about 11,000 vs 1,100) compared to local jobs on tuna vessels. In 2010, about 5,800 crew from non-Pacific Island countries were employed on distant water fishing vessels operating in the PIC region. Additional professional jobs in tuna fisheries management and support services provide additional jobs, e.g., over 600 jobs for fisheries observers in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Total employment statistics for all vessels, enterprises and from all countries, however, is not available, and nor are statistics for employment on artisanal and domestic vessels and in the local supply chains. For the Indian Ocean, estimates for employment in tuna fishing, all species, are not available.

PRE-PRODUCTION SERVICES

In the large industrial fisheries, pre-production services include the logistics of food supply, bait, crew recruitment and rotation, wharf access, establishment of markets and bunkering, vessel registration, licensing, and international negotiations. The purse seine catch may be transhipped to fish carriers or reefers in port (Western and Central Pacific) and/or close to port (Indian Ocean), to convey the catch to the canneries. This facility enables the seiners to keep on fishing, and also separates the fishing roles of capture and transport, as an efficiency measure. To reduce IUU, transshipments must be monitored by observers, and as a rule, regional fisheries management organisations prohibit transhipping at sea by purse seiners, although exceptions are permitted in archipelagic and territorial waters of some member countries of WCPFC.

FISHING

Yellowfin is often caught on conjunction with fishing for other target species. In the Western and Central Pacific Ocean tuna purse seine fishery, roughly 15 to 20 percent of the catch is yellowfin, as vessels are also fishing for skipjack and opportunistically may capture yellowfin as well. Most longliners in the WCPO target albacore or higher value bigeye tuna, but also capture yellowfin tuna during fishing activities. In contrast, Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna is a target species for both purse seine and longline fleets.

Employment on vessels catching yellowfin tuna varies with the type of gear, size and country of origin of vessel, length of fishing trips, from small local boats operated by only a few fishers on day trips, to large industrial purse seiners and longliners crewed by 15-40 members. Distant water longliners may be away from shore for more than a year. Typically, flag state regulations require the skipper and other technical positions to be filled by people from the flag country of the owners, e.g., Japan, USA, Taiwan and Korea. Deck positions are filled by nationals of lower wage countries in order to lessen crewing costs. In most developing countries, however, the crew of domestic vessels are from the home country, e.g., India, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and some Pacific Islands.

Economic pressures to contain fishing costs create conditions in which some fishing vessels operate without due regard to compliance with international safety and crewing standards. At the worst, cases have been documented in the Western and Central Pacific and Indian Oceans of illegal fishing vessels operated outside laws and social norms, using forced labour and abandoning crew in foreign ports. In ports, transactional sex (e.g., for money, food, fish, alcohol) happens; sexual abuse of fellow crew at sea and of children during port visits have been reported. The fisheries for yellowfin tuna are not any more affected than some other fisheries, nor immune from these problems.

Almost all at-sea workers on vessels catching yellowfin tuna are men and some boys (under 18 years). In Fiji in 2001, only 3% of people in the harvesting sector were women, compared to a majority of women in the processing sector.

In the environmental campaigns that promote tuna pole-and-line fishing and oppose purse seine and associated-FAD fishing, several social as well as environment benefits of pole-and-line have been noted. These include enhanced employment opportunities for local crews because of the increased labour requirements of pole-and-line. These same benefits result in added costs, however, and this coupled with the requirement for live bait severely limits the potential for pole-and-line fishing to adequately supply the world market. Handline fishing for large yellowfin tuna in some locations, e.g., southern Philippines and Indonesia, offers the opportunity to supply export and domestic markets as long as transportation is available to those markets.

SCIENTIFIC AND MANAGEMENT SERVICES

The Oceanic Fisheries Programme (OFP) of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community provides scientific advice to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission. This includes catch and effort data compilation and publication of an annual yearbook, and the provision of regular stock assessments and management advice to members of the Commission.

In the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, the Pacific Island Regional Fisheries Observers arrangement (including US South Pacific Tuna Treaty observers, Forum Fisheries Agency observers, observers for the Parties to the Nauru Agreement for MSC chain of custody requirements) and national observers in some cases) coordinates fisheries observers employed by countries and regional bodies to help scientific data gathering and compliance with conservation and management measures. For the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, trained independent observers oversee the Marine Stewardship Council chain of custody system. Industrial purse seine fishing generally has 100% observer coverage (levels may be lower in Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines) with other fishing types are covered at lower levels. Around 600 professional observers from Pacific Island countries are employed, including women observers and coordinators in some countries; observer management standards have been developed and applied.

PORTS, PROCESSING AND OTHER LAND BASED FACILITIES

The siting of tuna processing facilities in the Pacific islands of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean is closely linked to fishery access. Hence most onshore processing development has taken place in countries with significant tuna resources, e.g. Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Marshall Islands.

Land-based employment faces the same cost pressures as at-sea employment. Several small island countries in the Western and Central Pacific and Indian Oceans have benefited from the creation of thousands of jobs in processing factories, ports and in indirect jobs supplying these enterprises. On the negative side, ports and factories servicing tuna industries can bring with them a range of environmental and social problems. Industrial tuna processing affects different groups of people in distinct ways, depending on whether they live near the facilities and can take advantage of or suffer the effects. Government definitions of “development” have been slow to include an assessment of working conditions, health and environmental consequences of tuna-based development, but this is beginning to change. Governments of coastal states that have secured and retained local canneries against the cost pressures, view these as a means to secure more of the benefits of their large tuna resources.

Unskilled and skilled women and men are engaged in canneries in the Pacific, Asia and Indian Ocean countries, including those canning yellowfin tuna. Unskilled labourers are on low wages, a fact that attracts processors to a particular location in the first place. Whereas men's work spans loading and unloading and the more physically-demanding tasks, women work primarily on the processing lines. Migrant women and men, often from minority ethnic groups, have been found working in some canneries in the Philippines and Thailand, where human trafficking is finally being addressed as part of the crack-down on IUU fishing. Canneries in other countries, for example PNG and Solomon Islands, overall, have been upholding international conventions pertaining to human rights that they have ratified. In addition to the direct jobs created in the canneries, as many as 2.5 times this number of indirect jobs are estimated (PNG) to also be created.

Canneries prefer to engage women processors because they are considered more skillful than men at cleaning and cutting the fish. Worldwide, tuna canneries are large-scale employers of female workers in unskilled, production-level positions, particularly skinning and loining. At least 70% of workers in PNG canneries are female; 80-90% of whom are employed in production lines. In many canneries, women are paid lower wages than are the men employees for similar work. Workers often lack job continuity and security, and the right to form collective bargaining unions. In some locations, communities are negatively affected by the women’s cannery jobs if the women live away from home and their communal obligations and child rearing fall on unemployed men and older people.

At present, canning companies are not considered likely to automate most of the processing jobs. This is partly because of the desire to retain jobs in the Western and Central Pacific and Indian Ocean countries. Consequently there has been a lack of research and development undertaken to mechanize certain processes. This is compounded by the perceived difficulties in installing and maintaining high technology automation in relatively remote locations where many tuna processing factories are located.

GUIDE TO FURTHER READING

Note: Details of all sources are given in References below.

For tuna fishing and processing technology, see Mike McCoy and colleagues (2015) (Western and Central Pacific Ocean), Liam Campling and Martin Doherty (2007), and Amanda Hamilton and colleagues (2011b); for Pakistan see Muhammad Moazzam and Rab Nawaz (2014). For a guide to on-board processing of tuna for the sashimi market, see Michel Blanc and colleagues (2005).

For the types of products and markets Makoto Peter Miyake and colleagues (2010), and for value-added and byproducts, see INFOFISH (2007), and Shri Sreekanth G.B. and colleagues (2010).

For common names, see FishBase (www.fishbase.org), and Makato Peter Miyake and colleagues (2010) for USA names. For nutritional information, see NOAA FishWatch Pacific Yellowfin Tuna Table of Nutrition; Peter Nichols and colleagues (1998), and Australian Fishfiles (http://www.fishfiles.com.au/knowing/species/finfish/tuna-billfish/Pages/Yellowfin-Tuna.aspx).

For information on mercury in yellowfin tuna, see Maureen Kumar and colleagues (2004) (Fiji), Gary Myers and colleagues (2007) (Seychelles), and the Codex Alimentarius Commission, (2014). For information on mercury and selenium, see John Kaneko and Nicholas Ralston (2007) and Joanna Burger and Michael Gochfeld (2011).

For trade and markets, see Makato Peter Miyake and colleagues (2010), Mike McCoy and colleagues (2015), and Liam Campling 2015.

For employment in tuna supply chains, see Amanda Hamilton and colleagues (2011b) (global), and Robert Gillett (2009) (Pacific Island countries), Robert Gillett (2011) (pole-and-line fishing). For labour problems on vessels, see Eve de Coning (2011); and for legal instruments relevant to seafarers on fishing vessels, see the International Collective in Support of Fish Workers site (http://legal.icsf.net/icsflegal/). For women fishers, see Patricia Tuara Demmke (2006). For information on the Pacific Island Fisheries Regional Observers, see http://www.spc.int/oceanfish/en/ofpsection/fisheries-monitoring/observers.

For processing factories labour and other local issues, see Kate Barclay and Ian Cartwright (2008), Elizabeth Havice and Kristen Reed (2012), Parris (2010), and Olha Krushelnytska (2015). For gender information, see Patricia Tuara Demmke (2006), Amanda Hamilton and colleagues (2011a), Nancy Sullivan and Vina Ram-Bidesi (2007), Eve de Coning (2011). For the outlook for factory automation, see Mike McCoy and colleagues (2015).

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