From TimT on another thread...
The reason most Canadian wholesalers won't import clams DIRECTLY from country of origin is that they legally can't. Since about a year ago the CFIA became involved. There is now a few extra steps involved and a lot more risk.
1. Import permit required by CFIA. If CFIA chooses they can inspect the shipment. If they think the mortality is too high they will have NO PROBLEMS DESTROYING THE WHOLE SHIPMENT. People make comments about burning $100 bills. How about burning a handful of $1000 bills?? I used to import clams direct from Tahiti. You don't want to know how stressful it is to wire a 5 digit sum of money to some guy in a remote part of the South Pacific where you have no chance of getting your money back should anything go wrong. ie Shipment sits in the sun for too long and the clams all spawn in the bag and/or come in gaping.
2. Country of export must have a trade agreement in place with Canada.
3. There must not be any reported disease outbreaks from the country of export.
The import permit is the easy part. Most of the countries that export clams do not have the necessary trade agreements in place. Last time I checked into this all the countries I used to buy from did not have agreements in place. As well, Tahiti had reported a disease outbreak of Perkinsus olseni(aka Mollusc Ick) in their oysters.
So this means that I can only buy from countries that have a trade agreement in place... being the US. Most of the larger wholesalers will get you a CITES re-export permit and then the necessary DEA health inspection. Then you need a US Fish and Wildlife export inspection. All told it costs between $400 to $500 USD to do the necessary paperwork for a shipment. Then you are paying US wholesale for the clams and tacking on another $400 -$500 in fees.
Cheers,
Tim
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Red Sea Minimum
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