The golden chunks of fried, frozen fish speeding off conveyor belts at Good Harbor Fillet’s Gloucester plant are the company’s bet on bringing seafood back to school cafeterias.
After a year of lobbying by Good Harbor, the U.S. Department of Agriculture this week announced that it will start buying frozen Alaska pollock in a commodity program that puts discounted food in school kitchens across the country.
For Good Harbor, if mingling fish with pizza gets children to eat seafood that is healthier than hamburgers and fried chicken, these unconventional steps are worth it.
"We are trying to get kids to eat good pieces of whole-muscle fish," said Suzanne Tucci, who has been working on the school program for Good Harbor. "In the long run, the goal is to have them learn to appreciate good seafood."
All of the technology and processing that goes in to Good Harbor’s fish is not cheap, which has made getting them within the budgets of cash-strapped school systems difficult. But the subsidy of the commodity program could change that.
Under the program, the federal government will buy bulk pollock and offer it to states interested in using it for their school lunch programs.
Because local school systems aren’t equipped to break down frozen 30-pound blocks of raw fish, processors like Good Harbor are in a perfect position to sign deals with the states to process their pollock and deliver it in a form that can go straight to students.
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.