With its sweet flaky white meat and mild flavor halibut is considered one of the tastiest and most versatile fish in the sea. However, step into any seafood market or restaurant and you’ll quickly notice that halibut commands a premium price, often twice as much as other popular fish like salmon or cod.
So what makes this delicious fish so expensive compared to other seafood options? There are a few key reasons why halibut fetches a higher price tag
Limited Supply
One of the main drivers behind halibut’s high costs is limited supply. Halibut fisheries operate on catch quotas that restrict the total amount that can be harvested each year. This prevents overfishing and allows the halibut population to recover and replenish itself. But it also limits how much halibut is available to meet market demand.
The Pacific halibut quota for 2022 was set at 19.5 million pounds by the International Pacific Halibut Commission. While that may sound like a lot, when considering the U.S. and Canadian markets combined, it makes for a relatively small supply. Limited availability leads to higher costs at the fish counter.
Long Maturation Time
Pacific halibut take 8-12 years to reach full maturity. Atlantic halibut take even longer, around 15 years. It’s a slow growth and reproduction cycle compared to other commercial fish. This means it takes a long time for halibut stock levels to increase through natural reproduction. So even if the fishery is well-managed, supply is still constrained.
Geographic Distribution
Halibut are mostly concentrated in colder northern Pacific and northern Atlantic waters off Canada, Alaska, and New England. There are limited fisheries located in these remote areas, and transportation costs are higher to get the fish to major markets in the continental U.S. The long transit journey can also decrease quality and shelf life. This geographic limitation contributes to the scarcity and expense.
High Demand
From white tablecloth restaurants to everyday seafood counters, halibut is prized by chefs and home cooks alike. Its adaptable flavor and flaky texture makes it a customer favorite. Fishermen can often get a higher price selling to upscale restaurants than to seafood processors. This high-end demand helps buoy prices for all halibut in the market.
Fishing Method
Most halibut is caught through bottom longline fishing. This labor-intensive method requires baiting hundreds of hooks on miles of line laid along the seafloor. It takes skilled work to maximize yield while minimizing unintended bycatch. The expertise and time required is more costly than some other fishing techniques, pushing up halibut prices.
Fish Size
Halibut is a big fish, with many weighing over 50 pounds. The largest on record topped 500 pounds! Larger halibut produce thicker, wider fillets that are worth more. It’s not unusual for a single halibut fish to yield hundreds of dollars in fillet value. Even smaller “chicken” halibut under 10 pounds fetch more per pound than skinny counterparts.
Strict Regulation
In addition to catch quotas, both the Pacific and Atlantic halibut fisheries are subject to seasonal restrictions and strict oversight on the allowable size of fish that can be kept. These regulations protect the breeding stock but also limit the harvest further. Fishermen often have to discard smaller, less valuable yet tasty fish. This regulatory burden contributes to the overall costs.
Versatile but Delicate Meat
Halibut’s extra-firm and flaky meat holds up well to just about any cooking method – grilling, baking, pan frying. But its low fat content means it’s quick to go from perfectly cooked to dried out. The margin of error is small, so high quality is critical. Top grades command premium pricing.
Perceived Luxury
As a high-end white tablecloth and hotel restaurant staple, halibut carries a perception of luxury and exclusivity. Serving halibut conveys a certain prestige. Consumers are willing to pay more for that status, further elevating market prices. It’s not regarded as just another fish; its upscale reputation makes it seem worth the splurge.
So in short – yes, halibut belongs in the upper echelon of fish prices. Constraints on supply, the biology and life cycle of the fish, high demand, and luxury prestige all contribute to its expensive price tag. For a special occasion or a worthwhile treat, quality halibut may be worth the cost for a memorable meal. But for your regular seafood fix, you can find similar flavors and textures in more budget-friendly fish like snapper, grouper, and mahi mahi. With care and smart preparations, they can make for fabulous alternatives to pricey halibut.
Coastal science and societies
There are good reasons why putting halibut on your plate can strain your wallet.
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Dishes fly across the galley. Water gushes through the scuppers and onto the deck. Five crew members on the 17. 5-meter commercial halibut boat Borealis I walk like drunkards, holding onto anything stable. “We’re going to get bounced around a bit,” Dave Boyes, the boat’s captain and owner, deadpans.
About six hours ago, at first light, I watched as the crew set out 2,200 galvanized circle hooks with pollock, squid, and pink salmon chunks on them to soak across 13 kilometers of ocean bottom. Then, we ate breakfast and rested in cramped, cluttered bunks while the boat bounced on 1. 5-meter waves and—below, in the cold unseen depths—the hooks sunk deep into the lips of the predatory halibut.
The crew is now getting ready for battle by tightening their rubber rain gear and sharpening their dull gutting knives on electric machines. This is a sign of the violence that is to come. When Boyes toots the boat’s horn, it’s game on.
I came to Hecate Strait, off the coast of northern British Columbia, because I love halibut and don’t like how much it costs. People say that salmon is the most recognizable fish in the Pacific Northwest, but I think halibut is better because it has better flavor and texture. When I have the money, I have white fish baked with a glaze of whole grain Dijon mustard, butter, and mayonnaise.
Me and my family went to Mad Dog Crabs in the Cowichan Valley of Vancouver Island in the summer, and they sold fresh halibut fillets for CAN $6 each. 38 per 100 grams, compared with $5. 28 for sablefish and $3. 74 for sockeye salmon. “It’s the prime rib of the sea,” explained fishmonger Scott Mahon, who fished commercially for over 20 years. “Better taste, better quality, and better shelf life. “Unlike the farmed salmon industry, halibut aquaculture is still a fairly new business that doesn’t offer cheaper alternatives to consumers.”
Still, I cannot help but wonder why a wild, bottom-dwelling fish costs so much. To find out, I’m going on Boyes’s first fishing trip of the year with him for a week in May. I’ll get a real feel for what it takes to serve me a small, fancy piece of halibut.
When I’m on the boat, I stay away from the hydraulic drum while the first longline is brought on board. Minutes go by with only empty hooks returned. “That’s why they call it fishing, not catching,” jokes the burly first mate and engineer, Angus Grout.
About 200 halibut have been caught so far today. The first one comes to the surface, showing off its white belly and spotted brownish-green back. It’s an average-sized fish weighing about 11 kilograms and measuring about one meter from jaw to tail.
As more fish come to the surface, Boyes steers the boat from the deck while taking the hooks off each one and keeping track of how many there are. Grout messes up the catch and throws it into a plastic bag, where a wooden club hits it so hard it loses its mind. As the line moves down, the fish lands with a thud on the gutting table. Other crew members then take out the gills and gut the fish. They reach into the hole and tear out the gonads, which is also known as “pulling the nuts.” It makes me think of my last digital rectal exam. The fish curl up and let out their last, quiet gasps as their strong tails hit the table over and over again in vain.
Not too long ago, the commercial halibut fishery was dangerous for both people and fish. It was a wild west where licensed fishermen tried to catch as many fish as possible as quickly as possible, often in bad weather and with terrible results. On April 25, 1985, a fierce storm hit the halibut fleet in Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound, not far from where we are fishing now. Three men died and 18 were rescued from the water or the decks of sinking boats. “It was a dumb way to fish, and dangerous,” Boyes recalls.
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To stop the panic and protect the halibut, the Canadian government set up a quota system in 1991. This system gave licensed halibut fishermen fishing opportunities based on their catch history and the size of their boats.
It amounts to a very private club fishing a public resource.
The old management system set up a feast-or-famine situation for halibut availability. Openings as short as a few days resulted in the fleet’s halibut catch being unloaded all at once. Processors scrambled to find freezer space, while quality suffered and prices dropped. With the new quota system, fishermen can get better prices for their catch by selling it to the fresh fish market for longer, from March to November. And this affects the price paid by consumers.
“The year after the quota system came into effect, prices doubled,” Boyes says. “There was a market waiting. Halibut is very desirable, and people are willing to pay a lot of money for it. ”.
But as in any free-market economy, prices cycle. “Halibut is a commodity,” says Boyes, “just like gold and lumber. In the past few years, restaurants and fish shops have started to refuse to buy halibut because of how expensive it is. As a result, the wholesale price dropped by about $2 per pound. 45 kilogram.
Boyes has seen it all during his 42 years on the seas. He is worldly and emotionless, and he talks slowly and deliberately. He wears a tarred canvas sou’wester that his mother gave him in the 1970s. In the wheelhouse, he uses three different electronic navigational programs, but it’s still hard for him to make notes on a new tablet instead of paper. “I guess it’s time for me to enter the modern age,” he says.
The crew works hard from dawn until dusk without complaining because they are a strong, happy unit with a good sense of humor. They are the opposite of what a big corporate fishing company does. Most of them live in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island and are related to or have known each other for a long time.
Boyes’s daughter, Tiare, has been helping out on her dad’s boat for 17 years, since she was 12. She wasn’t always proud to say she fished, but the seasonal gig put her through university. “When I was a kid, I worried about all the fish I was killing,” she confides. “So I returned their hearts to the ocean. ”.
There is little time for sentimentality on the Borealis I. Gutted fish fly down the boat’s hold to be kept fresh on ice. You can see chickens running around with their heads cut off, and some halibut fish can do the same thing. As the day progresses, a slippery, shifting mass of gooey entrails covers the deck. Movie directors Quentin Tarantino and the late Sam Peckinpah would appreciate the gore. Even though she feels bad about all the deaths, Tiare has a dark side that she showed by giving the crew a custom jigsaw puzzle made from a fish gut for Christmas. “It was pretty challenging,” Boyes says.
Even though the ocean was calmer yesterday, I stood about a meter away from the action and the flying blood still got on my clothes, notebook, and camera. One drop even got up my nostril—a rare, reverse nosebleed.
Still, I rolled up my sleeves and dove in, trying to gut the halibut and help move it down the line. I even got tough and chased the writhing fish around the tote to make them lose their minds. It’s honest work, but after half an hour, I turned squeamish. I’m ready to kill what I catch, but it’s harder for me to accept mass slaughter on a factory line.
Baiting the hooks is more my style.
We’ve been waiting in line for four hours when all of a sudden, a huge halibut comes aboard, weighing in at almost 90 kilograms and worth a cool $1,300 on the hook. The crew goes crazy with excitement. Grout is the strongest crew member and tries in vain to hoist it onto the gutting table alone. Deckhand Pete Wyness, who has worked with Boyes since 1978, says, “That’s the first time I’ve seen him not be able to lift a fish.” The biggest halibut ever caught—always female—weighed more than 200 kilograms and lived 55 years. The average halibut caught today weighs 11 kilograms.
Tiare’s conflict with the activity that’s been such a big part of her life hasn’t waned. She is sad that this big spawner will not be around for much longer. Once it’s off the hook and on the table where the meat will be cut, she caresses its belly gently while whispering her condolences. “You know what it’s saying back?” asks the mischievous Wyness. “Fuck you!”.
While they’re still very small, Pacific halibut are the biggest flatfish in the world. They swim upright like other fish, with one eye on each side of their heads. But at about 2. 5 centimeters long, and their left eye moves to their right side. When they are six months old, halibut settle down on the seafloor in sandy areas along the coasts from California to Alaska and west to Japan.
As the fish continue to get bigger and more valuable, they are caught in one of the world’s strictest fisheries. This is to protect the valuable stocks for the long term. It is automatically tracked where the Borealis I and all the other boats in the halibut fleet are so they don’t go into areas that aren’t allowed for fishing. That GPS data and Boyes’s fish count data are given to Archipelago Marine Research, a hired company, at the end of the trip. Two onboard video cameras are trained on the incoming catch to keep the crew honest. “Every fish gets its picture taken,” Wyness confirms.
Archipelago Marine Research looks at 10% of the video. If the numbers don’t match the boat’s log, the owner pays for Archipelago to look at the other 90%. As the catch is unloaded from the Borealis I at Port Hardy, the first port on northern Vancouver Island, an observer will be there to weigh and count it. Each halibut that leaves the dock has a plastic tag with a serial number inserted into its tail. This lets buyers know where the fish came from and makes sure that it was caught in a way that followed the rules.
Management actions aren’t limited to fish. Toro lines are put out by the crew. They are made up of a towed buoy and streamers on either side of the longline. The buoys discourage diving birds, such as black-footed albatrosses, from trying to steal bait from the descending gear. The Marine Stewardship Council says the halibut fishery is sustainable, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program gives it a thumbs up.
After only a few days on board, I understand that consumers don’t see a lot of the fishery and that it takes a lot of close attention to make sure that halibut stocks stay healthy in the long term.
In 2017, Fisheries and Oceans Canada said that the commercial halibut fleet off the coast of British Columbia might have broken 68 rules. These rules included using illegal gear, having prohibited species, and fishing in closed areas. The biggest penalty involved a $45,000 fine for fishing in a marine protected area.
In 2018, about 150 boats took part in Canada’s Pacific longline halibut fishery. Halibut can also be kept as bycatch in other fisheries, such as rockfish and lingcod. Through its quota, the fleet is responsible for all species that die while fishing for halibut. The fleet also pays for annual inshore rockfish surveys to keep stock assessments up to date.
The management system puts pressure on fishers to limit their by-catch. “You don’t just go fishing,” Boyes says. “You can get into big trouble. ” Boyes typically catches 17 species; he targets halibut and the other 16 species are allowed by-catch quota. Boyes has to “beg, borrow, or steal” extra by-catch quota from other fishermen if he goes over it, or he risks being shut down.
Halibut fishing management requires that individuals 81 centimeters and smaller be tossed back into the ocean. The fleet also mainly uses #16 circle hooks, which tend to catch the larger, more valuable fish. “It’s kind of like taking care of trees,” says Ian Stewart, a scientist with the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) in Seattle, Washington. “You need to let them grow when they’re small, when the growth rate is fast. There have been talks about a maximum size limit, but there are worries about how many big halibut would die after being thrown back, adding to the amount of the fleet’s catch that is thought to be dead.
Even though there are a lot of rules and regulations, halibut stocks have changed a lot over the past 100 years. This includes the size of individuals, the overall number of fish, and where they are found. In the late 1970s, halibut were much bigger. A female 12-year-old weighed about 22 kilograms, while today one weighs just over 9 kilograms. There are many things that could be going on, such as competition for food with other species and changes in the ocean that affect the quality and availability of prey. “Fishing may have a role to play, but it’s certainly not the whole story,” Stewart says.
The west coast halibut population is also going through a period of lower recruitment, which means that fewer young fish are joining the population. This could soon mean fewer fish that can be caught, which could lead to even higher prices.
From California to Alaska, a total of just over 19,000 tonnes of halibut were caught in 2017. This included commercial, Indigenous subsistence, and sport fishing.
The IPHC, with three representatives each from Canada and the United States, sets annual fleet quotas.
Boyes, who was a Canadian commissioner from 2012 to 2017, says, “It can get nasty sometimes, but we’re all fishermen, and afterward we all go for a drink together.”
Whichever side of the border you fish for halibut on, getting into the business is a formidable challenge. Boyes estimates the fiberglass Borealis I is worth at least $1. 2-million, though someone could get a used wooden boat suitable for halibut fishing for closer to $300,000.
Younger fishermen who are just starting out would have to rent quota from older fishermen in the fleet and work their way up slowly. They might also fish for herring, salmon, tuna, or prawns to make extra money.
“Like farming, it takes a lifetime to build up a profitable operation,” says Boyes. “It’s not possible for a 20-something to start a fishing business and make it successful right away. It never has been possible.” ”.
Boyes’s fishing quota for 2018 is 22 tonnes, which is about a third of what he rents, mostly from Canfisco, a seafood business owned by Vancouver business mogul Jim Pattison, for about $4 per ton. 35 per 0. 45 kilogram. In fact, the quota system has made it possible for people, even those who were already in the fleet, to “fish” from their couches and make money from rentals without even going to sea.
If someone in the fleet wants to buy quota instead of leasing it, the cost of getting into the business goes up by about 20 times.
“Halibut fishing is like royalty,” Tiare says. “Either you are born into it or you marry into it.”
Wyness cannot resist teasing. “That’s why we call you princess.”
Keeping the boat running isn’t cheap either. This one trip will burn up an estimated $3,000 in diesel fuel, plus $1,770 for dockside monitoring. Boyes also just spent $10,000 for a rebuilt anchor winch. Boyes will go fishing twice, over the course of 11 days, to catch a halibut that is worth close to $400,000.
Then there are the crew costs. As deck boss for the season, Grout gets $40,000, and each of the other three crew members gets $34,000. “It’s like winning the lottery,” confides deckhand Kyla Savage while sending another halibut down the chute.
“Dave is very generous to his crew.”
Five days of fishing off the southeast coast of Haida Gwaii and one day off Triangle Island, which is close to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, are over. Boyes finally guides the Borealis I to the Canfisco dock in Port Hardy. The fish are then trucked to the company’s plant in Vancouver for processing and shipment to markets.
The halibut catch weighs in at 12. 5 tonnes—more than half of Boyes’s quota for the season. And the by-catch is well within the vessel’s quota.
As soon as the unloading is done, I leave the Borealis I and let the crew continue their overnight trip home. It’s been an enlightening trip for me. I have a better idea of how the halibut market works and what it takes to get a fish to market, but the high price still makes me cringe.
If someone questions the price of halibut, the crew, who is tired and covered in liniment, has a response: they remember an internet picture of a commercial fishing boat being tossed around by dangerously high waves. The cutting line said, “Oh, you don’t like how much seafood costs? Then go get it yourself!”
Facts: The Atlantic Halibut
Why is Halibut more expensive than cod?
Halibut is a higher-priced fish compared to cod. Its larger size, limited availability, and popularity contribute to its higher cost. The price of halibut can also fluctuate depending on the season and market conditions. In some regions, fresh wild-caught halibut can be more expensive than farmed or frozen varieties.
How much does halibut cost?
I found the answer is surprisingly simple. Halibut cost ranges from $20 to $40 per pound since there is high demand and high shipping costs. Furthermore, wild and farmed halibut can only be produced and sourced in the cold northern waters of the Atlantic and Pacific and farming is very labor intensive.
Why is Halibut so expensive?
Atlantic may be considered tastier by some but it is endangered. Halibut is expensive because wild halibut is unsustainable and requires shipping, and farmed halibut is labor and cost-intensive. If you are going to eat halibut, farmed halibut is the best for sustainability.
Is Halibut cheaper than tilapia?
While halibut is loved for its mild, sweet taste and flakey white flesh, it’s not the only white-flesh fish in the sea. Many compare the taste and texture of halibut to tilapia, which is much cheaper. For your convenience, the fish are ordered from least to most expensive when frozen (except halibut at the top for comparison). 1. Tilapia 2. Cod 3.