Operation in Puerto Rico or other American Gulf ports would 

 permit distribution of tuna without payment of duty of any kind. 

 Operation in South America, on the other hand, requires import 

 duty on the canned product, This^. combined with the lack of 

 suitable plant locations, uncertainty of fish supplies, the lack 

 of adequate supply and maintenance services, an uncertain labor 

 supply, and the possibility of future confiscation of plants by 

 foreign 20"vernments apparently has not appealed to any of the 

 California producers and none expressed interest in such an 

 operations 



IMPORTED TUNA AS COHPARED TO THE DOMESTIC CATCH 



Directly competitive with the tuna produced by the domestic 

 tuna fleet, the nature of which has just been described, are the 

 raw tuna products of foreign producers imported into the United 

 States. By far the major portion of imported raw tuna comes from 

 Japan. Most of the imported Japanese tuna are graded in Japan 

 before shipment so that any fish showing signs of spoilage or 

 bruising caused by improper handling are eliminated. The 

 rejected fish are used in Japan for domestic consumption. At the 

 same time the fish are graded by size so that a shipment usually 

 falls v/ithin a very narroxj size range. The domestic catch, on the 

 other hand, is not graded in any way before it reaches the cannery, 

 and as a result consists of a wider range of fish sizes and 

 contains a higher proportion of bruised fish. 



These factors give most processors a preference for the 

 imported Japanese fish insofar as ease of handling in the plant 

 is concerned. Particularly is the viniformity of size of consid- 

 erable value* Not only does this make for greater facility in 

 handling but it also increases the yield obtained. This is due 

 largely to the fact that losses during precooking of the fish can 

 be held to a minimum if the sizes of the fish are uniform. When 

 fish of varying sizes have to be cooked together a precooking time 

 long enough to thoroughly cook the largest fish is required. This 

 means that the smaller fish are overcooked and excessive shrinkage 

 has taken place. While it is true that a rough segregation of fish 

 by sizes talces place before putting them in the precooker, a 

 certain variation is bound to occur nevertheless. Pre-grading for 

 size in Japan facilitates this sorting for size as the fish go 

 into the precooker, and enables the operator to work with fish in 

 a much closer range of sizes and thus reduces losses during 

 precooking. 



348 



