NEW YORK — At Fishtown Seafood, owner Bryan Szeliga is worried about the oysters.
Szeliga, who operates three retail and wholesale locations in Philadelphia and Haddonfield, N.J., sells a range of seafood. But briny, slurpable oysters are the biggest part of his overall business. And 60% to 70% come from Canada.
The Trump’s administration’s on-again, off-again 25% tariffs on imports from Canada — which went into effect on Tuesday only to be suspended on some items for a month on Thursday — are giving Szeliga whiplash. The flip-flopping making it tough to plan ahead. And if the tariffs do eventually go into effect, he’ll likely need to raise prices and offer his customers fewer choices of oysters.
“Part of the problem of the ‘chaos and shock and awe’ approach to the negotiation is you can’t actually really business plan based on knowing what is and isn’t actually going to happen,” he said. “That’s a big problem.”
Szeliga started Fishtown Seafood four years ago after other jobs in the food industry including chef and working for a nonprofit. His customers include neighborhood locals and other who shop at his retail shops as well as restaurant wholesale clients.
He sources some of his U.S. products directly from fish farms but for Canadian oysters he goes through dealers.
“They’re larger companies that aggregate from all the (seafood) producers and then and then distribute throughout the country,” he said.
There’s also a quality consideration.
“Canadian oysters simply have the size, flavor profile, and brand recognition that our customers prefer and have grown to love,” he said.
On Tuesday, most of his suppliers told Szeliga they’d be raising prices. He only made one purchase while the tariff was in effect, buying some “sweet petite” oysters from Prince Edward Island, to make sure a wholesale client had enough product. He paid the whole 25% markup himself and didn’t pass it along to his client, eating the extra cost. The suppliers’ price increases are likely to come down now that the tariffs are postponed, but only for a month.
Now that he has a month reprieve, Szeliga said he plans to adjust his own inventory and work with his wholesale clients to plan out a menu that will be less affected by the tariffs. That might mean replacing higher-priced, higher-quality oysters with domestic or lower-priced Canadian offerings.
“Now that we have a picture of what this is probably going to look like, let’s just start designing out your menus so that we’re prepared and it’s not complete bedlam again,” he said. “Even if prices come down, we know prices are going to come up to X, Y, Z (when the tariffs return).” He said he’ll be asking his clients, “What products are going to work for you in a month?”
Szeliga isn’t alone with his concerns – the entire oyster market could be affected.
The total value of U.S. imported seafood in 2023 was $25.5 billion. Canada, as the largest supplier, delivered more than $3.6 billion in seafood products to the United States in 2023. Imports of seafood from Canada into the U.S. rose 10% in 2024 to $3.96 billion, according to the USDA.
While oysters are just a fraction of that – the most popular seafood remains shrimp, salmon and tuna – oyster demand has been growing. In 2022, oysters joined the National Fisheries Institute Top 10 List for the first time ever.
Szeliga has watched as the popularity meant more and more restaurants, beyond just oyster bars, began offering the bivalve on their menus. He worries that growth will now “fade and fizzle.”
“I think it’s really going to take the momentum out of what is a growth industry,” he said.
Szeliga said he’ll likely limit the number of oysters he carries in his shop from 12 to about 10 to make sure he can still offer a range of higher and lower price oysters that his customers want, even if he no longer carries the most expensive options.
Switching to oysters harvested only in the U.S. isn’t an option, because although there are numerous types of oysters available on U.S. coasts, the majority of U.S. seafood is imported. Canada is the largest supplier of seafood to the U.S. That’s hard to match.
“For domestic oysters the production is pretty maxed out right now,” he said. “Oysters can take several years to grow and make it to market so a farmer would have needed to make a business selection several years ago to grow their business to be in a good position right now to take full advantage of this situation.”
Szeliga worries that Canadian producers might start limiting what they sell to the U.S. market after the tariff confusion.
So ultimately, his customers should expect less choice of oysters, and for a higher price since not all prices will come back down after they’ve been marked up.
“Some products that were really ‘value’ purchases in the past. I think those suppliers, it forced them to realize they were value,” he said. “And I think there are going to be products that aren’t going to come back down (price-wise),” he said.
