Saving Seafood

From the sea to the food insecure: Seafood ‘gleaning’ program begins in N.J.

September 27, 2019 — Several pantries, soup kitchens, and a women’s shelter in New Jersey are the beneficiaries of fresh seafood thanks to a pilot program that began in August.

At a press conference in Point Pleasant Beach last week, Fulfill (formerly The FoodBank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties), America’s Gleaned Seafood of Lavallette, and Trinity Seafood of Lakewood announced the New Jersey Seafood Gleaning Pilot Program.

The growing movement seeks to increase food security and reduce food waste by utilizing the approximately 20 percent of seafood that is discarded by United States fisheries annually for consumption.

“Gleaning is an important tool in the fight against hunger. Perfectly good fish are routinely getting thrown overboard or worse — thrown in a dumpster. What a waste, especially considering one in ten people don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” said Fulfill CEO and President Kim Guadagno, New Jersey’s former Lieutenant Governor, at the Fishermen’s Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach.

Read the full story at WHYY

Gleaned Seafood brings bycatch to the needy

September 23, 2019 — A pilot project to give commercial fishing bycatch to the hungry officially launched Friday in New Jersey, where the America’s Gleaned Seafood volunteer program and Trinity Seafoods have made the first deliveries.

“They have a lot of leftover fish they can’t use. But its’s perfectly good fish,” said Kim Guadagno, the CEO and president of Fulfill, a nonprofit regional food bank, at a media conference at the Fishermen’s Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.

After more than two years of careful organizing, gleaning advocates made the first deliveries in August, moving 2,300 pounds of unregulated species — mostly cownose and bat rays — that were processed and frozen into 630 pounds of kitchen-ready product at Trinity’s facility in Lakewood, N.J., said company president Mike Carson.

The fish went to several pantries, soup kitchens and a women’s shelter. St. Mark’s Food Pantry and Soup Kitchen in Keansburg, N.J. was one of the first users, where its chef used ray as the basis for cioppino, an Italian-style fish stew.

The fish were well-received by users, and will help fill a chronic shortage for food banks, said Guadagno, a former New Jersey lieutenant governor.

Fulfill serves Monmouth and Ocean counties on the New Jersey coast, where “136,000 people will go to bed tonight not knowing where they’re next meal is coming from. Fifty thousand of them are children,” she said. “I can’t keep enough protein on the shelf. This fish is a found source of protein.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman