Fed by Blue

We celebrate the vineyard, the vintage, and the story behind every bottle of wine. So why does most seafood reach our tables with no story at all? The waters that produce our seafood are as distinct as any vineyard. A wild-caught halibut from Alaska is fundamentally different from one off California's coast. An oyster from Maine tastes different than one from Washington's estuaries. Seafood has terroir, too. When we know where our seafood comes from, we can make more responsible choices. We can support producers who care for the waters they work in, chefs who honor seasonality, and grocers who connect their communities to seafood worth celebrating. Our latest piece makes the case for treating fish a little more like wine. 🍷 Read it here ➡️ bit.ly/4vZXigH Photos (slides 1, 2, 4) by Briana Maria Photography | courtesy of St. Supéry Estate Vineyards & Winery #sustainablewine #sustainableseafood #hopeinthewaterpbs #merroir #sustainableshrimp

An invasive species has taken over more of the Chesapeake Bay's biomass than every native species combined. It's also become a test case for whether ecological crisis and economic opportunity can be solved with the same fix. Researchers at Virginia Tech and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science believe a well-managed blue catfish fishery could be worth over $1 billion annually, but only if watermen, processors, and demand all scale together, and if management accounts for the biology (removing too few catfish can accelerate population growth rather than slow it). For people already working these waters, that timeline isn't academic. What would it take to build market demand fast enough to match an ecological timeline like this one? 🎣 Full story by Anya Groner for Gravy: Stories of a Changing American South (Southern Foodways Alliance), on VPM ➡️ bit.ly/452yatP #bluecatfish #sustainableseafood #bluefoods #invasivespecies #catfish

Ghana just announced Africa's first Blue Food Innovation Hub—a $10 million commitment to strengthen aquatic food systems through startup accelerators, research partnerships, and direct support for small-scale operators and young entrepreneurs. This is what an exciting investment in blue foods infrastructure looks like. We're tracking this and looking forward to seeing what it builds! #bluefoods #bluefoodinnovation #sustainableseafood #fisheries #aquaculture 

A key part of blue food/seafood literacy is about who harvests it and why they do. 🎣 Here are five questions that we hope to see people asking the fishers in their communities. #commercialfishing #fishing #sustainableseafood #seafood

One of the biggest barriers to sustainable eating is FRICTION. Food futurist Mike Lee makes the case that most sustainability messaging asks people to trade a good dinner tonight for a better planet tomorrow…and that trade rarely wins. His argument: if we want blue foods (fish, shellfish, seaweed, kelp) to scale, the sustainable choice has to be the easy, delicious one. His proof point is dashi, the umami-rich stock built on kelp and dried fish that Japanese cooks have relied on for centuries. It takes minutes, not hours, delivers more flavor than a long-simmered French stock, and carries a fraction of the carbon footprint. 🥣 He now uses it weekly to build a 20-minute clam chowder because “it fits into the exact shape of a chaotic schedule, delivers the deep satisfaction of the heavy version, and I never feel wrecked after.” For those of us working in sustainable food systems, it's a useful reframe! The fastest path to lasting behavior change may not be through people's values but through pleasure, affordability, and convenience. Read his full essay, "Soy Sauce in the Baby Bottle” ➡️ bit.ly/4eZ5Xc7 #dashi #bluefoods #sustainableseafood #foodsystems

If you're in Seattle, we'd love to see you on July 22nd to explore solutions for a healthier, more sustainable blue food system!

This #WorldOceansMonth, our Executive Director Jennifer Bushman joined Sustainable Change Alliance to talk about turning storytelling (documentaries, campaigns, and other content!) into new choices at the store, the menu, and beyond. This Santa Barbara non-profit spotlights Central Coast companies pioneering solutions to social and environmental challenges—like the 𝗛𝗢𝗣𝗘 𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥 story of uni being harvested and ranched at The Cultured Abalone Farm, which helps protect our kelp forests and provides a delicious blue food. Now a question for you: what does it actually take to turn a great story into a different choice at checkout? #sustainableseafood #hopeinthewaterpbs #bluefoods #blueeconomy

A great weekend at Aspen Food & Wine! 🏔️ Chef Andrew Zimmern demoed two recipes from 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗟𝗨𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗖𝗢𝗢𝗞𝗕𝗢𝗢𝗞: a seafood en papillote that didn't last long at all, and a fish and chips salad that proved seafood can be reinvented in the best ways. Thank you to everyone who stopped by, cooked with us, and asked good questions about where their seafood comes from! #FWClassic #TheBlueFoodCookbook #SustainableSeafood

🎣  In what ways are Puerto Rican fishers rebuilding differently after the hurricanes in 2017? And how are they working with marine scientists at Conservación ConCiencia to restore fisheries and create greater food security in an uncertain future? Watch the "Puerto Rico: Resilience in Action" episode of Changing Seas — out today! Check out the trailer here ➡️ bit.ly/4ekBYe8 #ChangingSeas #PuertoRico #SustainableFisheries #HopeInTheWaterPBS

The world's got plenty of problems. But spend time around chefs, and you’ll find solutions are just as abundant! ✨🍽️✨ At The Culinary Institute of America’s 𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗨𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘 Leadership Summit, sustainable blue foods were everywhere, including kelp burgers, inventive takes on invasive catfish, and plenty of ideas for how the ocean and our waterways might help feed us better and protect our planet. #MenusOfChange #SustainableSeafood #BlueFoods #CulinaryInstituteOfAmerica