Fish auction swims into the 'Net

By BARBARA TAORMINA

Essex County Newspapers

Fish traders found acres of the latest products and services at the Hynes Convention Center last March when the International Seafood Show opened in Boston.

The stars of the show were the dot.com fish trading companies that are fighting to move the $350 billion global seafood market online with Internet auctions that connect buyers and sellers all over the world.

Gloucester jumped into the dot.com fish fray last July when Atlanta-based Global Food Exchange bought the Seafood Display Auction, a local fish auction where much of the city's fleet land their fish. Global Food Exchange hopes to take the city's daily catch from a live local auction with a small group of regional buyers to a online auction open to dealers world wide.

"We're just taking this industry to another level," said Larry Ciulla, whose family started the auction in December 1997.

Ciulla, who will still run the auction for Global Food Exchange, has assured fishermen they will barely notice a difference in the day-to-day operations at the auction,

Ciulla and a local crew will still help land, sort,tag and record thousands of pounds of fish delivered by boats and trucks each morning.

But instead of listing the fish for bids in the auction's conference room, the catch will posted on a real-time online auction.

"This process is consolidating and making the auction system more efficient," said Barry Sullivan The Seafood Food Display Auction's accountant and chief operating officer. "For Gloucester this means we're opening up to a much wider array of buyers throughout the world."

Just before Thanksgiving, the Gloucester auction took a trial run on the Internet. Although the bidding went smoothly and all the fish was sold, Sullivan said the company still needs to do some homework before it makes a final shift to an e-business.

"We are working out the bugs with the telephone lines," said Sullivan. "We need more stable lines and a higher level of service."

Sullivan expects the auction to be online around the first of the year.

Although the switch to an electronic auction has been relatively quiet, word of the auction's sale was still big news for many in Gloucester. Waterfront advocates believe the Seafood Display Auction helped pull the Gloucester fishing industry through years of decline due to fading populations of New England ground fish such as cod and haddock.

The auction opened doors to new markets for fishermen who needed to compensate for less fish with better prices.

According to auctioneer Gus Maniscalco, local boats like the auction because it they believe it offers them a fair deal for their fish.

"They know when they land their fish here that it's going to get fair market value for that day," Maniscalco said."That's the ball game."

And oceanside, it looks like nothing will change when the auction moves online.

Shoreside, the change could be another matter.

Despite Sullivan's confidence that the auction will easily overcome the technical glitches, it remains to be seen how Global Food Exchange will fare in the seafood dot.com struggle.

Like many dot.com ventures, electronic fish trading is new and fiercely competitive. Major players like Seattle-based Fishmonger.com have already merged with larger companies while Gofish.com of Portland Maine began down sizing last month.

Still, there are some chief differences that separate Global Food Exchange from its competitors. Both Gofish.com and Fishmonger.com, which is now part of WorldCatch, trade fish exclusively while Global Food Exchange has online markets for produce, poultry, meat and dairy products. That diversity gives Global Food Exchange a broader customer base.

The other chief difference is the fish itself. Through the Seafood Display Auction, Global Food Exchange will offer higher quality fresh fish while the company's chief competitors post mainly lots of frozen fish.

As for how the change will affect local fish dealers, Sullivan said it's a change that will take some time to accept. Haggling over fish prices on the docks has been part and parcel of the city's waterfront since the industry began over three centuries ago.

"There are some nostalgic feelings," said Sullivan who will miss the morning give and take with fish dealers. "It will be a different situation but this is a changing business and this is another change."

Still, Sullivan is optimistic about the fishing industry's online future.

"It takes a little while to adjust, but once they adjust it is for the best," he said.