Correspondence
Email sent to the contact address for OBI Seafoods Inc.
The email said: "I’m contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s food processing industry, and a link we’ve discovered between a company engaged in such practices and your supply chain.
OBI Seafoods Inc.’s supplier Rizhao Rirong Aquatic Products And Foods Co. Ltd. is a Rongsense Group company. The Rongsense Group has received multiple groups of persons from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China under the state-imposed labor transfer program.
The United Nations, human rights organizations and academic experts agree that since 2018, the Chinese government has systematically subjected Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities to forced labor across the country via state-sanctioned employment schemes which use coercive methods in worker enrollment and obstruct freedom to leave employment. The U.S. has prohibited the importation of goods produced from state-imposed forced labor.
Does OBI Seafoods Inc. have any comment or statement to make in light of the above information? Please respond to this email by close of business June 16, 2023."
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed OBI Seafoods: "I recently contacted you in relation to our investigation into the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry, as it related to your supply chain. The email noted that the Rongsense Group, whose company Rizhao Rirong Aquatic Products is one of your suppliers, has received persons from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China under the state-imposed labor transfer program. Public records show that, since 2020, the Department of Agriculture has awarded at least fifteen procurement contracts to OBI Seafoods. Can you clarify if OBI Seafoods sourced any product from Rizhao Rirong, or any other Chinese supplier, to fulfill any of the Department of Agriculture contracts, in full or in part? Please respond to this email by close of business July 24, 2023."
A representative from OBI Seafoods emailed Politico about a story produced by The Outlaw Ocean Project:
"Hi Ian, I work with OBI Seafoods, one of the seafood companies mentioned in your article today in Politico, “How the U.S. Violates its Own Trade Laws to Buy Seafood from China.” OBI Seafoods has asked me to alert you that the information you included about the company in your story is inaccurate. The following statement clarifying the facts can be attributed to John Hanrahan, who is currently the COO of OBI and will become the company’s CEO in January.
OBI Seafoods does not import products from China and has never used products processed in China to fulfill USDA contracts. All products processed for USDA contracts are made in our plants in Alaska and some are reprocessed in Seattle-area plants. This includes the U.S. government purchase of pink salmon mentioned in your story in Politico.
@AnitaKumar, I am copying you so Politico is aware of the need to revise the story. It would be helpful to know when a revision will be made so I can share that with OBI.
Best regards, Pat
Pat Shanahan for OBI Seafoods"
The Outlaw Ocean Project sent a reply email:
"Dear Pat and John,
Thank you for your note. We appreciate you engaging.
You said that OBI Seafood does not import products from China. However, according to publicly available trade records sourced from Import Genius, OBI Seafoods has imported four shipments from four different Chinese companies since 2020. This includes imports of products such as frozen pink salmon, frozen sockeye salmon, and Pacific cod filets. One of these shipments, in January 2022, is from Rizhao Rirong Aquatic Products. As you may know, Rizhao Rirong Aquatic Products is a subsidiary of the Rongsense Group, which our investigation identified as having received workers from the Xinjiang region of China under a state-imposed labor transfer program.
Worth noting is that OBI Seafoods was formed in June 2020 through a merger with Ocean Beauty Seafoods and Icicle Seafoods. Since that merger, Ocean Beauty Seafoods has imported over 100 shipments of fish from China, including approximately 20 shipments from Qingdao Tianyuan Aquatic Foodstuff, a company identified by our investigation as using Uyghur labor. Trade records show that Ocean Beauty’s smoked division, OBS Smoked & Distribution, has also imported from Qingdao Tianyuan as recently as 2023.
We reached out to OBI Seafoods for clarification on two occasions in 2023, on June 13, 2023 and July 20. For the sake of transparency and as we have done with all our interactions with stakeholders, we have included that outreach to your company on our Discussion page. Your company’s particular page is here. In those emails, we asked OBI Seafood to clarify if OBI Seafoods sourced any product from Rizhao Rirong, or any other Chinese supplier, to fulfill any Department of Agriculture contracts, in full or in part. Since OBI Seafoods did not respond to this request for clarification, we were careful to refrain from claiming in the Politico story that OBI Seafoods fulfilled these contracts specifically with seafood sourced from Chinese processors – as you’ll note from our wording.
We appreciate OBI Seafoods’ engagement willingness to now answer our questions and we welcome the opportunity to ask for additional clarifications from your company:
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As noted above, John said that OBI Seafoods does not import products from China. Given that trade records show the import of seafood products to OBI Seafoods from China as recently as 2022, can OBI clarify when it ceased importing seafood from China? And why?
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OBI Seafoods was created as a result of a merger between Ocean Beauty Seafoods and Icicle Seafoods, and it shares a contact address, phone number, and leadership team with Ocean Beauty Seafoods. OBI also took control of the Ocean Beauty trademark following the merger, and the Ocean Beauty website states that it sources its fresh and frozen cod, salmon, and other seafood species from OBI. Can you confirm that Ocean Beauty imports for OBI and vice-versa?
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OBS Smoked and Distribution, another entity linked to OBI Seafoods and Ocean Beauty Seafoods that shares the same address, is continuing to import from Qingdao Tianyuan Aquatic Products to this day. Can you confirm that OBS Smoked and Distribution imports for OBI and vice-versa?
Thank you for your time and attention on this. Please reply to these questions by Friday, 3pm (Nov 23).
Ian Urbina The Outlaw Ocean Project"