Seafood Donation Program

Eating with the Ecosystem has partnered with the Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Food Policy Council to start a seafood donation program in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Rhode Island is home to a vibrant immigrant community and a dynamic commercial fishing industry. While it may seem that these two communities have little reason to interface, this notion could not be farther from the truth. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated key challenges experienced by both of these communities. 

According to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, one in four Rhode Island families was food insecure in 2020. As is the case in even conventional circumstances, immigrant communities, people of color, and low-income families have borne the highest burden. 

Meanwhile, the commercial fishing industry also experienced unique challenges as a result of COVID-19. The closure or reduced flow in many of the supply chains that local seafood typically was sold through, such as restaurants, export markets, and institutions, left fishermen with much-reduced market demand. This was reflected in lower prices and shoreside dealers accepting lower volumes of fish, leading to many boats sitting idle at the dock and many fishermen without a paycheck.

These factors, combined with the fact that Rhode Island’s vibrant immigrant and Indigenous communities already knew how to take whole, unprocessed fish and shellfish and turn it into delicious meals, presented an opportunity. We established this program to purchase seafood that had limited markets or was being thrown away as bycatch and send it to communities in need who already hold the cultural knowledge of handling these fresh species.

In the beginning, we started small with seafood distribution and scaled up slowly, now averaging 3500 pounds of seafood being donated per week. We’ve realized that we have only hit the tip of the iceberg, as houses of worship, other community groups, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have reached out to us about additional needs in the region. We continue to innovate and improve this program’s efficiency, leveraging new partnerships with Farm Fresh Rhode Island and Move for Hunger that will greatly increase the ease of distribution.

Additionally, while this program was originally conceived to meet emergency response needs, it has now become something bigger. Our network of community partners has opened opportunities to share cultural connections with seafood, equip community members with relevant skills to tap into and get jobs in the local seafood economy, and leverage their distributions as a method to organize their own constituencies around other community issues. Furthermore, the emergency food system is evolving into a brand new market channel for the fishing community, enabling them to receive a fair price for normally underutilized species and species that would otherwise become bycatch. This new market channel increases the resiliency of Rhode Island’s fisheries community.

If you would like to learn more about the program please contact us by sending and email to kate@eatingwiththeecosystem.org.

*This is a new program but did use Eating with the Ecosystem’s Seafood For All project as a jumping point to get this new donation program going.