March 27, 2017 — In many ways, the upcoming year for the Fishing Partnership Support Services organization will be a journey back to its roots in Gloucester, where it all began in 1997.
The Gloucester-based fishing stakeholder, which provides a bevy of financial, medical, safety and other support services to fishermen and fishing families, is planning a yearlong marketing campaign to promote the economic, cultural and health benefits provided U.S. consumers by the commercial fishing industry.
J.J. Bartlett, FPSS executive director, laid out the pillars of the campaign in a quick presentation Thursday night to the Gloucester Fisheries Commission at City Hall.
Bartlett told commission members FPSS envisions the campaign as a vehicle for closing the gap between fishermen and consumers buying their fish, as well as a platform for uniting the industry in the face of the ever-growing appetite for sustainability and accountability.
“The connection between the people that do the work and the people that eat the fish has been lost,” Bartlett said.
The campaign will stretch fully across the state using social media, traditional marketing tools and events, he said.
“It’s really going to be a 12- to 18-month process, starting this spring,” Bartlett said.
He said the schedule includes a large event in Gloucester sometime in August, followed by another in Boston in September.
“We’re going to keep pushing until we change the conversations about what fishermen do and how they’re recognized,” Bartlett said. “Uniting the industry will get us 90 percent of the way there.”
Bartlett also offered some chilling statistics to reinforce the rigors of commercial fishing and the high physical costs that often come from a career on the water.
They include:
Northeast groundfishermen are 37 times more likely to die on the job than police officers. New England waters, according to Bartlett, are the nation’s deadliest.