Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Community supported fisheries in cities: can healthful local seafood reach beyond the wealthy

Increasing awareness of the environmental impacts of our food has increased the desire of consumers for assurance that the sustainable food that reduces these impacts while providing quality and healthy products. In seafood, community supported fisheries (CSFs) provide a transparent supply of seafood via vertical integration once the fishers land their catch. In controlling the supply chain, CSFs are uniquely able to provide transparency assuring consumers that its seafood is not only harvested sustainably, but also processed responsibly. Consumers pick up seafood directly from the CSF, enabling a direct line of questioning regarding environmental sustainability and social responsibility of the product. This level of integration is not without cost. For the business to remain viable, this level of integration often necessitates significant markups that price the seafood as a luxury good outside the reach of all but customers with relatively more disposable income. Without intervention, CSFs may become a solution only for the financially enabled. However, innovative thinking provides the opportunity to provide healthful seafood options at prices reasonable for lower-income consumers. For example incidentally caught species, fished along with target species, tend to be more affordable. Such low-cost supply has the potential to not only bring seafood to lower income households, but also to schools, hospitals, and potentially vulnerable populations. Barriers to supply of incidentally caught seafood include sustainability concerns and consistency of catch for these species. If surmounted, CSFs provide a transparent vehicle of sustainable seafood to consumers across the socioeconomic spectrum and improves the connections between local food supply and society.