1127 
(e) General comments 
The purpose of singling out these four classes of fishery products for particular 
identification is to note their combined importance in the total United States 
fishery product market. Together they used just short of 90% of the total fish 
supply used in the United States in 1967, in terms of round weight, and in terms 
of value at the wholesale level the products made from them (from imported as 
well as U.S. flag fishing vessels) was about half of the total for the United States 
($1.2 billion). These are the four classes of fishery products for which the market 
in the United States has been increasing for the past twenty years at a rate 
greater than that of the population. 
Obviously, these are the four prime categories of fishing products in the United 
States when considered from the viewpoints of growth and demand, volume of 
use, value of product, and total effect on United States flag fishing. 
In the case of two of these commodity classes (tuna and shrimp) physical 
volume production by U.S. flag vessels has held reasonably constant over recent 
years and in both instances now seems to be inclining upward slightly. The share 
of these two markets provided by imports has crept up to slightly over 50% of 
the total. United States processors and distributors of these two product classes 
have grown rapidly in volume of their business, have generally prospered, and 
have expanded broadly in foreign as well as domestic ventures. Still the two 
domestic fisheries providing raw material are in reasonably sound economic con- 
ditions, if not prosperous. Both are now in a period of growth. The tuna fleet is 
expanding into larger, longer-ranging vessels that are beginning to penetrate the 
West African, as well as the more familiar Western Latin American, grounds in 
a substantial manner. The shrimp fleet in the Gulf of Mexico, after a number 
of years of experimenting with the technology, is beginning to move successfully 
into larger, longer-range, vessels equipped to freeze product aboard, which is 
resulting in geographic expansion of the U.S. flag fishery in the Caribbean 
area. The Alaska shrimp fleet, an entirely different business, working on differ- 
ent resource base and producing for a substantially separate market, is just 
beginning substantial growth which should persist for several years. 
It may atso be noted that the tuna and shrimp fisheries have been less plagued 
by State reguiations than is normal in the United States fisheries. 
In the other two classes of commodities (fish meal and frozen fish blocks 
primarily) production by United States fiag vessels has trended down absolutely 
as well as relatively. The share of the market provided by imports has crept 
above 70%, and the two domestic fisheries supporting them are not in reasonably 
sound economic condition. In both cases market is sound and steadily growing, 
and resources to support U.S. fisheries are ample in U.S. coastal waters. Accord- 
ingly a more detailed examination of these two fisheries is made below. 
B. Changing consumption pattern for fishery products in the United States 
The Department of Agricuiture (followed by the Bureau of Commercial Fish- 
eries) has a statistic of fishery consumption which it has used for a long while 
in keeping track of the per capita consumption of various food products in the 
United States. Defined by its terms the per capita consumption of fish in the 
United States has varied between 7.9 to 12.2 pounds of edible meat per year 
since 1916. The high point of 12.2 pounds was in 1927 and the low point of 7.9 
was in 1943. 
The series shows no long term trend of consequence in this 51 year period. If 
there is any trend, it is a slight drop-off over the past 10 years. The per capita 
consumption of edible fish meat was 11.0 pounds in 1916 and 10.6 pounds in 1967. 
This series of statistics probably deserves recalculation because of the changing 
product composition over the years, but it is the series that is available and 
ordinarily quoted. It is obvious that the series has inconsistencies in it if one 
divides the statistic of supply of edible fish to the United States per year (also 
published by the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries) by the population of the 
United States. Within the series there have been sharp long term trends in 
several major products. 
The per capita consumption of canned salmon has declined rather steadily 
from 3.0 pounds in 1936 to 0.8 pound in 1967. In canned sardine the statistic has 
gone down rather steadily from 1.8 pounds in 1936 to 0.3 pound in 1967. Cured 
fish of all sorts went from a high point of 2.8 pounds per capita in 1916 rather 
steadily down to 0.5 pound per capita in 1967. 
On the other hand three other products have gone up steadily in per capita use 
during the period. Canned tuna was at 0.4 pound per capita in 1986 and rose 
to 2.4 pounds per capita in 1967; shrimp was at 0.385 pound per capita in 1936 
