July 1, 2012 – During May’s Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, Houston chef Bryan Caswell pulled a small metal tag from his pocket. It had been attached to a Gulf Wild-branded red snapper he had brought to Atlanta for the festival, and it contained a tracking number.
When I got home I plugged the number into the Gulf Wild website (www.mygulfwild.com) and learned about this snapper’s passage from sea to plate. It had been caught about 50 miles off the Texas coast by one Kenny Guindon, a second-generation fisherman piloting the Falcon — a 42-foot longline-bandit vessel that had been named “Boat of the Month” by National Fisherman magazine.
This sophisticated tracking system is one way that distributors are working with chefs and restaurateurs to ensure the seafood that shows up on your plate has been responsibly harvested from a sustainable fishery.
Today’s diners want fresh seafood like never before. In Atlanta, two of the biggest restaurant openings this season are seafood spots. Ford Fry’s The Optimist in west Midtown has been packed since opening about a month ago. Fifth Group will open Lure this month, and the online food community is already dissecting its menu.
But this increased demand comes at a time when seafood fisheries around the world are collapsing and fish farming has emerged as a major environmental hazard. Consumers, increasingly aware of these issues, want to know their dinner has come from a sustainable source. But that’s a lot trickier than it sounds.
“There’s so much information out there, and it’s hard to wade through it all, ” says David Bradley, Lure’s chef. “In different regions different species are caught with different gear. So mahi mahi from Chile and Ecuador now is considered a ’species to avoid’ because of the way it’s harvested. But the mahi we’re buying are landed in North Carolina, and these fish are considered a good alternative.”
I ran into just such an issue recently when I ordered a surprise tasting menu at Woodfire Grill and was served bluefin tuna. After the meal, I called manager Rick Blumberg to ask why the restaurant would serve an endangered species and not warn customers. He immediately provided the paperwork. This particular fish had been caught in domestic waters and was part of a very small catch from a Marine Stewardship Council-certified fishery.
Read the full story at the Atlanta Journal Constitution