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Is frozen the new fresh? Yes—in some cases, frozen seafood really can be the better choice. The advent of modern freezing methods allows for seafood to be frozen at its peak freshness, capturing its flavor, preserving its texture, and maintaining its high nutritive value. And since many fish are often flash-frozen on a boat just minutes after capture, the offerings in a market freezer may actually be fresher than those in a seafood case. The increased shelf life of frozen seafood also reduces business costs associated with spoilage, translating into better value for customers. But all the promise of new freezing techniques won’t be realized without the ability to recruit consumers into the frozen revolution. When contemplating a seafood purchase, most people’s first thought is “what is the catch of the day?” or “anything fresh from the boat?” We know that shopping the freezer aisle still bears a stigma—a leftover from the days when we were sourcing our seafood locally. But the reality of today’s seafood market is much different. For starters, consumers need to realize that there are concerning environmental impacts that stem from the “fresh is better” perspective. This is especially true if seafood is flown in to serve diners or shoppers. A study by Dr. Peter Tyedmers, an ecological economist at Dalhousie University, points out that container ships are by far the most efficient way to transport food, and that shipping via air creates a significantly higher carbon footprint. In some cases, a fish flown from coast to coast in the U.S. has a higher carbon footprint than a frozen seafood item transported via container ships from Asia or Africa. Furthermore, fresh seafood can also lead to larger amounts of food waste—most retailers accept a loss of 10 to 20 percent of fresh seafood due to spoilage and other factors. According to a paper on wasted seafood in the peer-reviewed journal, Global Environmental Change, nearly half of the edible U.S. seafood supply was lost annually from 2009 to 2013. Since one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set out by the UN is to cut global food waste in half per capita by 2030, one of the most effective ways to help achieve this is to buy or source frozen products. The Cold Chain and New Freezing Technologies The seafood industry is perpetually concerned with fast spoilage rates, improper handling, and timely storage. The factor that most influences spoilage rates is temperature, and an uninterrupted cold chain is critical to the successful delivery of a product from producer to plate. For many seafood producers in the tropical world, maintaining end-to-end cold chain integrity is challenging. Breaks in the cold chain can affect their ability to capture the most value from their products. There are a number of freezing methods used in the preservation of seafood today, including several that have been designed to combat the traditional challenges of low freezing efficiency and the creation of large ice crystals that affect food quality: Super freezing is a technology where fish caught at sea can immediately be frozen down to -76 degrees Fahrenheit within 24 to 72 hours, which is critical to locking in key nutrients such as Omega-3 fatty acids that can quickly deteriorate in seafood that is not handled and stored properly. Cryogenic freezing is a more advanced form of traditional blast freezing that involves spraying or immersing food in carbon dioxide or liquid nitrogen. Unlike traditional freezing methods, this form of rapid freezing creates only microcrystals, which helps maintain tissue integrity. Impingement freezing, which is a technology well-suited for fish fillets, involves blasting the top and bottom surfaces with high-velocity air jets. The turbulence created by the streams of air surrounding the fish allows for more efficient heat exchange and quicker freezing time. Faster freezing times result in smaller ice crystals, which is key to decreasing cellular damage in food products. And since food tissue damage can be caused by the expansion in volume of water as it freezes at atmospheric pressure, this can greatly impact texture and taste. Michael Kohan, seafood technical director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, stresses the importance of freezing seafood properly during harvest: "Freezing techniques for seafood can enhance the overall quality by preventing protein denaturation, lipid oxidation, and the formation of large ice crystals that can rupture cell walls in fish tissue and promote further moisture loss, and therefore freezer burn and off-flavors. By freezing seafood directly after harvest, the (Alaska) seafood industry is able to preserve the flavor, texture and nutrient content at the peak of quality." Many innovative technologies are still in the research and development phase, and while some are competitive on quality or cost, the frozen food industry is still concerned about whether consumers will buy. Fortunately, there is an observed growth trend in the frozen food sector, with busy millennials helping to fuel a greater demand for frozen convenience. Proponents of the Gourmet Frozen Movement Chicago-based Wixter Market, the only seafood market in the U.S. promoting 100 percent frozen fish, sells a variety of frozen seafood from around the world and specializes in super-frozen sashimi-grade fish. Nearly all their product has been harvested, portioned out, and flash-frozen at -18 degree Celsius within three days, and most of their super-frozen products are frozen within 24 hours. “The whole goal is to get people to eat more seafood,” says owner Max Mixter. “I want to make it delicious, convenient, affordable and sustainable.” Perhaps one of the most interesting examples of where these freezing technologies can really make a difference is in the sushi industry, where traditionally sushi-grade fish needs to be flown in fresh, sometimes all the way from Japan. Google Food has a strict no air-freighted seafood policy for all Google campuses, which has limited the serving of some types of sushi. Recently, a unique partnership was established between Google Food; Off the Grid, a Bay Area–based food truck company that creates food truck concepts and uses them to serve Googlers,; and Uoriki, a Japanese seafood company that has been one of the pioneers in freezing technology. Through this partnership, Off the Grid launched “Electric Sushi,” which serves sushi-grade fish that has been frozen and sent via container ship from Japan. While there has been a stigma associated with frozen food in years past, the frozen food category is experiencing volume growth for the first time in years. With the environmental costs of flying food and the food waste implications, socially-conscious consumers will likely continue to drive this growth as the stigma begins to fade away. In addition, as technology continues to improve and become more accessible, the possibilities to support more types of developing world seafood products will also become more possible, expanding our options in the frozen case and opening up a whole new menu of opportunities.

Powerful, elegant, and delicious, bluefin tuna are truly one of the marvels of the ocean. Unlike most fish, bluefin tuna are able to regulate their internal temperature. This allows them to have superior vision, dive deeply, swim at high speeds, and cover vast distances with incredible navigational ability. They have colonized every ocean on the planet making them one of the world’s most valuable and commercially exploited fish species across the globe. Black Diamonds on the Menu According to the 2018 assessment by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, the bluefin tuna population has declined significantly to a mere 3.3 percent of its historic size. Decades of overfishing continue to deplete most stocks and boost market prices, with demand driven primarily by the growing global popularity of sushi. In the culinary world, bluefin tuna (known as maguro in Japanese) is regarded as the “black diamond” of sushi due to its unique buttery flavour, beautifully marbled texture, and unfortunate scarcity. 80 percent of all bluefin tuna caught ends up in Japan, and they can fetch prices in the millions, as recently demonstrated at the world’s largest wholesale fish and seafood market, Toyosu Market in Tokyo, where a buyer paid $3.1M for a single fish. Despite global conservation efforts, chefs remain beholden to those customers willing to spend top dollar for a taste. The allure of bluefin tuna belly, or toro, is particularly strong for sushi aficionados, making it a coveted, yet unsustainable menu item. The economics of its market encourage continued fishing, pushing us closer and closer to species extinction. Confusion and Bluefin Market Concerns Confusion regarding sustainability has also come up in the chef community as there have been many claims of “sustainable options” for bluefin tuna. Some have argued that catching one bluefin from the western Atlantic at a time is sustainable, but this is only true when a fishery stock is healthy. While there are claims of observed growth in western Atlantic bluefin stocks, scientists have confirmed that the growth in numbers is attributed to the mixing of the eastern and western bluefin tuna populations due to warming waters. “While bluefin stocks are improving, they are not fully recovered and there is a lot of conservation work that needs to be done and strong management measures kept in place to allow stocks to recover," said Shana Miller, senior officer for International Fisheries Conservation at the Ocean Foundation. Many in the bluefin debate have also looked to tuna ranching as a solution to the challenges facing the wild fishery. Tuna ranching involves capturing bluefin tuna as juveniles and, in some cases, towing them in cages for hundreds of miles to pens where they are then fattened with raw sardines or other fish. By the time they are ready for market, as much as 30 pounds of sardines will have been used to produce a single pound of bluefin tuna. In short, bluefin ranching takes juveniles out of an already threatened fishery, places additional stress on the species, and incurs a significant carbon cost. However, bluefin tuna juveniles have been produced in hatcheries and recent reports have shown that there is potential to scale this method. But the problem of high feed use remains a longer-term challenge, as it will require the use of pelleted feeds that incorporate sustainable ingredients that are currently still being developed. Get Creative with Bluefin Alternatives The James Beard Smart Catch program, built on the ratings of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program, seeks to educate chefs about sustainable seafood and help them make alternative seafood choices. “People need to realize that eating bluefin tuna is equivalent to eating panda, because that is how magnificent they are as a species. Bluefin is not an item that we want to put on our menus because we want to make sure that we are making great choices for our environment and also for our communities,” said chef William Dissen, a Seafood Watch Blue Ribbon Task Force member and Smart Catch Leader. Chefs such as Jay Huang are finding ways to be more innovative in their menu offerings. As the executive chef for Lucky Robot Japanese Kitchen, the first sustainable sushi restaurant in Texas, Huang has to balance consumer expectation with the restaurant’s sustainability goals. “As a sushi restaurant, customers expect to see o-toro on the menu. We’ve chosen to never serve bluefin at Lucky Robot, and so we had to be creative to offer an alternative,” he explained. “We created a piece called chiki toro or “fake” toro, with chiki coming from the Japanese word, “inchiki,” meaning fake. We take big-eye tuna from Hawaiian waters and pair it with a thin slice of lardo that has been cured in-house with salt and Peruvian aji peppers, and then lightly torched to release the oils. This combination transforms the lean big-eye into a buttery, decadent bite.” In summary, the bottom line is that there is no such thing as sustainable bluefin tuna from any source at this point in time, and our unquenchable desire for this product keeps unsustainable pressure on wild bluefin populations. Farming bluefin tuna in limited quantities with hatchery-reared juveniles and pelleted feeds that are produced with sustainable feed ingredients could be a choice in the future; however, the timeline to realize that vision is not on the immediate horizon. In the meantime, there are a number of Smart Catch–approved tuna alternatives available, such as Beard Foundation sustainable seafood partner Fairtrade Yellowfin tuna from Indonesia, Albacore tuna belly, or other well-managed species such as Pacific Yellowfin (ahi) that consumers can support and feel good about. Learn more about Seafood Watch recommendations for buying and eating tuna. If you have questions or would like support in finding new species for your menu, don’t hesitate to reach out to the Smart Catch team at smartcatch@jamesbeard.org.

“The industry will not rise to the challenge of scaling up production sustainably if it can’t attract the best people. And it can’t afford to exclude 50 percent of people.” - Audun Lem, deputy-director of FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Economics Division Leadership in Sustainability As the word “sustainability” continues to move to the forefront of our collective consciousness, it is critical to understand the role of women in sustainable solutions. In 2015, the U.N. produced the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) intended to address global issues of “poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice,” and have stated that the realization of these goals is dependent on the achievement of Goal 5: Gender Equality. This highlights the importance of initiatives like the James Beard Foundation’s Women’s Leadership programs presented by Audi, which seek to help empower women in the culinary industry. The Beard Foundation also aims to support women involved in the sourcing of ingredients for chefs through its Smart Catch program, which helps educate chefs on how to make better seafood choices. Gender Issues in the Seafood Industry Despite equal numbers of women and men working in the seafood production industry, there remains a significant disparity between the two regarding the type of work performed and the wages received. While men dominate fisheries, females tend to work more in aquaculture. However, in both industries, women are generally relegated to low-paying, low-skill roles. Furthermore, when considering both the paid and unpaid work associated with social, familial, and community duties, women typically work longer hours. A recent Oxfam report revealed that women are the most vulnerable group in our seafood supply chains. Day after day women process seafood for leading supermarkets across the world, while many face poor working conditions such as lack of bathroom breaks, excessive work hours, and far less than living wages. The unofficial status of women’s work can also prohibit them from accessing credit and financial resources, placing limitations on their ability to play more significant roles in the seafood industry. Additionally, women can face cultural barriers that affect ownership rights and perpetuate a perceived lack of ability to succeed. Add in the fact that women have close to no representation at the household, management, and executive levels, and you end up with a system that works for men while ignoring the needs of women in the industry. The Opportunity for Chefs The Beard Foundation entered the seafood space through Smart Catch, a chef education program that assesses the sustainability of seafood menu items and provides guidance on seafood choices. Chefs are pivotal for setting the bar on what is innovative, creative, and a product with a great story. As chefs continue to take strong positions on sustainability and social justice issues surrounding the products they use, there is an opportunity to bring gender into the conversation. Chefs and consumers around the world can support women’s empowerment in seafood by increasing demand for equitably produced options. For example, the Asian Seafood Improvement Collaborative (ASIC) is a group of international stakeholders partnered with Oxfam’s Gender Transformative and Responsible Agribusiness Investments in South East Asia (GRAISEA) to promote improvement in small-scale shrimp farms. This initiative’s goal is to create a new approach to handling gender inequality in the small-scale seafood sector by running capacity building programs and creating a tool to help purchasers find shrimp supply chains that actively promote women’s economic empowerment. Another group advocating for women is the Indonesian Sisterhood of Fisherwomen (PPNI), a network of 16 Indonesian fisherwomen organizations that work collaboratively with other NGOs to strengthen women’s voices. The PPNI also fosters knowledge and skill sharing as well as relationship building. This empowers women to develop livelihood and survival strategies, build social capital, and carry out collective action for policy change. The culinary community occupies a powerful position, as they can influence consumer preferences and raise awareness of gender issues in food systems through the choices available on their menus. A better understanding of where our food comes from means that we can make more informed decisions and promote change in seafood both at home and around the world.

Sardine cakes, jellyfish stir fry, and seaweed brownies are just a few of the unexpected items that seafood lovers are starting to see on menus across the country. Shifting away from traditional seafood picks like salmon and shrimp is no longer just about trying new tastes—it can also be a good strategy to eat healthier, save some money, and help protect the oceans! Experimenting with lesser-known, responsibly procured seafood is on the rise in restaurants, and taking a chance on a new type of seafood when dining out or at home can positively impact the economies of both local producer communities and eaters worldwide. Our Seafood Habits Fish and shellfish provide the lean protein and healthy fats (omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA) that are recommended as important parts of a balanced diet. In the United States, ten seafood species represent 90 percent of national seafood consumption. Unfortunately, this data reflects consumers’ general unwillingness to try other lesser-known species. We can’t expect salmon, shrimp, and tuna to feed the world for a variety of reasons, especially since high demand for them has led to overfishing and endangered the futures of entire species. That is why turning to lesser-known species could be a big part of the sustainable seafood solution we need. Moving away from highly demanded species is part of making responsible seafood choices for our ocean. Eating species lower on the food chain (like oysters and sardines) takes advantage of their naturally high abundance, since it takes less energy to produce and harvest them. For example, harvesting wild tuna can have a much larger carbon footprint when compared to harvesting small pelagic fish like menhaden and sardines. Many lesser-known types of seafood are currently underfished in the United States due to lack of consumer demand. For example, fishermen only landed 26 to 45 percent of what they were allowed to catch from a number of New England fisheries (e.g. redfish, mackerel, whiting) due to a lack of demand from the market. This leaves thousands of pounds of untapped sustainable yield in the ocean and not helping to grow local economies or feed Americans a healthier diet. The West Coast Groundfish Fishery “Conservation groups, academics, fishermen, and buyers up and down the supply chain have been working to make U.S/ fisheries some of the most sustainable in the world. The story behind the West Coast groundfish fishery is likely one of the least known environmental success stories.”—Tim Fitzgerald, Director of Impact, Environmental Defense Fund So how do we right the ship? It takes changes on both the production and consumption sides. There are inspirational fisheries management stories happening in U.S. waters right now. The U.S. West Coast Groundfish Fishery was once so overfished that it was declared a federal disaster in 2000. This designation brought fishery and conservation groups together to work with the groundfish fisheries managers and get it back on track. Since then, the fishery has made a dramatic recovery and is now rated a “Best Choice” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program. Unfortunately, economic revitalization hasn’t kept up with the conservation success, largely due to consumer preferences. That’s where chefs come in—they have an incredible opportunity to guide diners towards the abundance of sustainable seafood we have in the United States and abroad. The Opportunity “Customers look to chefs for guidance on what they are willing to eat. If they only see cod, shrimp, and salmon, consumers won’t be more adventurous. Chefs have an opportunity to help people look at seafood differently.”—Vinny Milburn, Supplier and Smart Catch Leader, Greenpoint Fish & Lobster Chefs can help spur food trends by demonstrating leadership in sustainability, innovation, and creativity. Choosing underutilized seafood ingredients and creating mouthwatering dishes not only leaves seafood lovers satisfied, but it helps to shift culinary practices away from predictable and traditional menu items, broaden their guests’ experience, and provide a platform to share the unique story behind lesser-known seafood. This diversification concept is not limited to wild harvest fisheries. Aquaculture operations have the ability to work with underutilized species as well. For example, Australis Barramundi, a James Beard Foundation sustainable seafood partner, is producing the lesser-known species barramundi in Southeast Asia. Our oceans face many threats, and a menu that showcases new species that are responsibly farmed and harvested is an important part of adapting to our changing environment. Adding a little diversity to your menu should be a culinary adventure that can, in turn, positively impact health, communities near and far, and our oceans. We hope that you will be inspired to try the unlikely and support responsible seafood choices and healthier oceans. If you want to learn more about the diversity of seafood options, check out Environmental Defense Fund’s campaign “Eat These Fish” where you can find more information about East Coast and West Coast local seafood options. Consumers and chefs can also find a list of responsibly harvested species from the Gulf of Maine region on the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s website. Also refer to Seafood Watch for specific ratings for different fisheries. If you have questions or would like support in finding new species for your menu, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Do you eat farmed shrimp? This can be a harder question to answer than most people realize. Many folks in the food community have heard that farmed seafood, or aquaculture, is a bad thing. This perception largely stems from headlines about the salmon and shrimp industries that tout their negative impacts including environmental, social, and food safety concerns. As a result, many consumers aim to avoid farmed seafood. However, if you’ve had shrimp in the United States in the past couple of decades, chances are you have eaten farmed shrimp—since only about 20 percent of shrimp consumed domestically is wild-caught. Farmed shrimp is one of the most consumed, most valuable, and most controversial seafood items available today. In the early 1990s, the “Pink Gold Rush” spurred the rapid global expansion of farmed shrimp due to record-high shrimp prices in markets like the United States. During this period, the industry grew rapidly and recklessly, resulting in the destruction of mangrove forests, pollution, and the heavy use of chemicals and antibiotics. In addition, there were also social impacts, such as upheaval and restructuring of communities in farming regions, significant labor abuses, and even the murders of those that protested shrimp moving into their lands. Over the last few decades, some of these issues have been mitigated or partially addressed due to international pressure and condemnation, but recently a new travesty has been revealed: slavery. In Southeast Asia, bonded and forced labor have been taking place on the vessels that provide fishmeal for the region’s shrimp aquaculture feed. Producing countries in Southeast Asia have shouldered most of the blame, but, as with most issues, things are not that simple. More realistically, the entire supply chain is at fault. This includes consumers in countries like the U.S. The deeper issues that allowed for slavery in seafood supply chains arise from shrimp aquaculture’s transformation into a commodity industry. Commodities compete on price, and are generally characterized by a “get all you can while you can” mentality from supply chain participants, including buyers, processors, and farmers. Shrimp is viewed as a commodity, like wheat or corn, and so everything moves towards one value proposition. The reality is that the shrimp industry is much more diverse, featuring producers from small-scale, family-run farms all the way up to operations that resemble agricultural feedlots. [MB1] Recognizing the diversity within the industry and celebrating producers with better practices is a critical piece of creating a sustainable future. Coffee was once also viewed as a commodity, before branding and coffee shops in North America dramatically changed its industry and supply chains. We can now differentiate between organic and FairTrade coffee, for example, and consumers can make more informed choices based on their preferences. A similar story of change may be possible for the farmed shrimp industry. For example, the Asian Seafood Improvement Collaborative has created a dialogue with industry stakeholders to build improvement standards that encourage innovation and better production, while realigning incentives and ensuring that farmers are getting fair value for their shrimp. This process has the added benefit of being a bottom-up rather than top-down approach, bringing stakeholders from the region together to help them build their own standards. One of the most compelling things about shrimp aquaculture is that in spite of its popularity across global markets, small-scale producers do most of the farming. This means that there is a real opportunity to create positive change in small communities around the world if the significant mistakes of the industry’s development can be reconciled. The shrimp industry could improve if it was significantly restructured and if the incentives were shifted—and many people are working to do just that. With these improvements and changes, we can start to move from the idea of simply “shrimp” to the types of complex distinctions we make with other protein sources. Just as we look for “grassfed beef,” we can look for “mangrove shrimp,” “shrimp from small Asian community X, ” or even “fish-free shrimp.” Even such small steps as these can help us to more fully realize the potential food security and livelihood benefits of the farmed shrimp industry, for the people growing the shrimp, and those of us who enjoy their harvests. For more information on farming shrimp, visit Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch, and read the Associated Press's Pulitzer Prize–Winning series, Seafood from Slaves.