Improving Seafood Quality

A grant from the USDA’s Local Food Promotion Program makes it possible for our seafood team to improve the quality of and market opportunities for New England finfish. Our goal is to implement a suite of region-wide quality handling improvements to boost the market demand and value for seafood harvested by New England fishermen. This project will increase local access to and consumption of local seafood, as well as giving local fishermen an opportunity to capture more value for their catches. In alignment with the goals of the USDA Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP), this project will facilitate coordination and collaboration across the seafood value chain to improve quality handling, food safety, and waste reduction.

GMRI will partner with a key aggregator in the region to improve handling and develop best practices at the processing level of the supply chain. We will improve the availability and access to ice for fishing vessels in four New England ports, a critical and basic issue that impacts quality and safety. And finally, we will bring together fishermen, processors, and buyers in a series of workshops to increase awareness and understanding of a range of quality and waste reduction issues to collaborate towards meeting region-wide standards. These improvements are critical for our region’s seafood industry to grow and compete with high quality imported seafood, which is currently the largest barrier to market access for much of the finfish harvested in New England’s waters.

We learned from the report above that there was a need for more guidance on the complex regulations and permits necessary for fishermen or sea farmers interested in capturing more value by selling their product directly to consumers or directly to restaurants, retailers, or other buyers.

We developed two guides designed to help fishermen or sea farmers navigate the permitting processes in Maine and Massachusetts:

• Maine Fishermen Guide to Direct Sales
• Massachusetts Fishermen Guide to Direct Sales