Food 360 Live with Sean Dimin from Sea to Table

Founder and CEO Sean Dimin of Sea to Table joins host Marc Murphy for a candid conversation about fish in America. Every day port towns from Maine down to the Gulf Coast and back up to Alaska welcome the wild catch of local, independent fishermen. Do you know what happens to the fresh catch after that? The supply chain system might not be as simple as you think. Listen as they discuss how Sea to Table works to get Americans freshly caught fish right to your doorstep and what’s on the horizon for responsible fishing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Food three sixty, the podcast that serves up
some serious food for thought. I'm your host, Mark Murphy.
Today I'm happy to welcome an old industry friend who
I've bought a lot of fish from over the years
and still buy a lot of fish from. Sean Dimmon,
ceo and founder of Seed a Table. Thank you for
coming to my podcast with three sixty. Very exciting to

(00:25):
have you as as my guest. I want to just
first sort of tell my people how I know you.
So your company is called See the Table, and I
was buying fish from you when I had a bunch
of restaurants and I still buy fish from you. But
first I want to talk about and I'm trying to
go back in my memory bank of stories that we
have together. But there was one thing that I remember

(00:46):
particularly when I had a sandwich. There was a fish
standwich that I had on at Ditch Planes. I remember
this very specifically, and at the end of a winter season,
I think you were somebody that works with you came
to me and said, here there's a note from the
fisherman and who was fishing the fish for your fish sandwich.
You kept them in business throughout the winter because of

(01:07):
that fish sandwich that was so popular in your restaurant,
and it really literally brought a tear to my eye.
I was like, Oh, my gosh, this is amazing that
this is a company that is tying together a fisherman
and a restaurant tour to his customers, and you see
the good that we're doing. And and and is that
Are you the one who told me that story or
somebody I can't remember? Yeah, I think so. I want

(01:28):
to say that was at maybe up in the ditch planes. Yeah,
he reached out to me. I remember it because what
we started doing with you, Mark, and you were so
awesome and you were you were right there at like
the forefront of when we started doing it is figuring
out how to not just buy whatever is fresh and
caught that day, but by basically putting a a contract

(01:54):
on the boat. And you guys are saying, Hey, we've
got six restaurants. We're going to do the same menu
item across all these restaurants. We know we're gonna have
these pars at these locations and we're gonna need it
for the next six months. And you guys allowed us
to go and find guys like John bart up in Sitka,
Alaska and say, hey, John, there's this guy named Mark.

(02:16):
He's got these restaurants and he wants I'll ask him
pacific cod or he wants your sable fish or whatever
he was able to catch during those seasons and put it,
put a pound to it, and put a price to it.
And if I'm remembering correctly, he actually had some really bad,
nasty back surgery on the off season and he got

(02:37):
a payment that came through for his purchase, like as
he was laid up and not being able to work
and turned around and like expressed some sincere appreciation and
I remember that one. Well, that's I mean, it makes
it worth it. I mean, it's beautiful that your company

(02:58):
and and and let me let why don't you just
give us a quick description of your company. We've evolved
over the years, but one thing that we've always stayed
true too is we want to figure out how to
get more Americans feed better fish. And the way that
we do that is we seek out us wild coot,
sustainable and traceable fish. And it could be as much

(03:19):
as finding group of fishermen off the coast of Florida
that we're doing the restaurant you're in the seminole casino
and figuring out how to connect it, you know, sixty
miles away from where they're actually landing, which is actually
a hard thing to do, or figuring out how to
source from Alaska in this season. I can remember the
chef at the casino when I had a restaurant down there,

(03:41):
and it was at the Tampa Hardbrock Casino. Remember the
chef had been a had been a chef in Chicago,
and he says, I don't understand it. It was easier
for me to get goulf shrimp in Chicago than it
is in Tampa. And I'm literally, I'm I'm a stone's
throwaway from these fishermen's boats, and you guys helped us
connect those dots. Yeah, it's really weird. The whole way

(04:01):
that the seafood distribution system is set up, we've always said,
is completely convoluted and broken. It makes no sense that
you know, even if you're if you're living on Long
Island or you're living in Florida or on the Gulf Coast,
that it should be difficult for you to connect with
local seafood. But for so many Americans it is. It's
hard to find really good local seafood and it makes

(04:23):
no sense. Absolutely. And so now with this whole where
where the world is right now, you're obviously selling to
a lot less restaurants, and I think that's starting to
open up. And obviously that's a great thing. I think
that more people are opening up their restaurants and you're
getting back to that. But during that time that a
lot of places were closed, what behavior did you see
from from customers? Are they buying new things? What's happening

(04:45):
with that or what are you seeing? We saw almost
overnight a huge huge surge on our home deliveries oude
of the business. You know, the writing was on the
wall for restaurants. We all knew that there was closures coming.
Everyone kind of in March started to pull back. I
can settle down and saying we worked with a lot
of college universities, some of the best dining programs around
the country. They too, just to have lost an entire

(05:08):
spring semester, we were super fortunate. I know a lot
of people in our position of being distributors and suppliers
to restaurants were really hurt. But we had our online
e commerce home delivery business overnight go a thousand percent
straight up. And so we just turned our entire team's

(05:29):
focus to figuring out how to staff, man, restock, and
deliver with the limitations at hand. And it's the same
fish a lot of It's really the same fish that
we supplied to restaurants all around the country, just a
different product form portions, vacuum sealed, butcher wrapped. And so
we've just taken and being able to keep just about

(05:51):
everybody on our team just turned to a new audience,
and it's an audience we've been working with for the
last few years, which is the American home cook. So
I guess when when this is all over and you're
going back to selling at restaurants, I'm sure you're gonna
have a lot more home customers. Because it was interesting.
I was telling somebody about your about your business the
other day and she says to me, well, now you're
the third person that's recommended I order from them, so

(06:13):
I guess I'd better be on it. And I was like,
so people are obviously word of mouth is getting around,
but now I've also been hearing a lot about certain fishermen,
are certain types of product that home people are not
used to cooking. Like, for example, like oysters, right, oysters?
They say of oysters are sold to restaurants because I mean,
who wants to sit around and chuck oysters? I'm doing
my part. I did a little bit of a lesson

(06:34):
with Emily on my on my Instagram showing people how
to chuck an oyster. It's not that hard, or you
can steam them open, and that's a much safer way
if you want to do it that way. But are
there other fish that are out there that that you see,
that you that that you're at home people don't really
want to touch. I mean, I know that it's a
big thing with with farmers because you know, not many
people are buying squab and quail because they don't cook

(06:57):
that at home, although they should. But is there a
fish sort of equivalent to that? Yeah, shellfish is a
good one. I'd love to circle back with you on
that one because shell fish is so great. But our
our whole e commerce, the way that we're able to
deliver in homes is all frozen flash frozen right at
sea or right at the dock after it gets processed.
So it's a really easy product form to work with.

(07:19):
But one of the things that we've always focused on
is we don't just sell what Americans eat, and Americans
really are focused on, you know, four fish, as Paul
Greenberg has put it, farm salmon, farm shrimp, cantuna, and
some sort of a whitefish. And that's as that's our language.
That's as about as far as we go. But that's
not what we catch. And we've always focused on the

(07:41):
supply side of the business. So what are the fishermen catching,
what species are delicious, what populations are healthy to harvest from,
and which are the ones that are going to get
money back in these guys pockets. So when you think
about a fish like Gulf of Maine redfish or West
Coast dover soul. We do Atlantic winter skate and some

(08:03):
people know it, some people love it. Other people are
just stuck in their homes thinking about fun things to do,
calinarily seeing that they could get, you know, co host
salmon or soak salmon or a wild golf shrimp from
us and say why don't I throw a pack of
skate in there and figuring out it's absolute delicious. I mean,
I know you've got a French culinary background. I imagine

(08:24):
you've you've you know, dealt with a skater two in
your life. I've I've cooked my fair share of skate.
I've also deboned my fair share of skate. And it's
I was basically it's a it's a wonderful fish. But
you know, going back to like the idea of frozen, right,
so a lot of people are like, oh, you know, frozen,
that's not great, But actually, fish is one of those
things that absolutely And I remember you telling me the

(08:45):
Alaskan fisherman who was doing my catching my salmon for
me that when they catch the salmon, it is fill
aid and frozen within forty five minutes of being caught.
And it is like literally when I used to open
the package in my restaurant and men, I mean you
could almost see the shine of the of the of
the Alaskan water sea all my in my mind that

(09:07):
you could just it was like, oh my god, this
is so beautiful. But this is the scariest part about this. People.
There's so many people that are so used to farm
raised salmon. When they were getting this beautiful salmon right
out of the water from Alaska, they're like, oh, it
doesn't taste the same. I'm like, because this is the
real stuff like why what do you what is going on? Like?
You know, you have to understand that that I mean,

(09:29):
first of all, I love that anything that has Alaska
written on it and correct me if I'm wrong, means
that it's not farm raised. It has to be. Alaska
is like the strongest most powerful legislation I guess around
keeping in the state constitution. I love that. So what
does it say? Exactly more eloquently than I can. It says,
all of their natural resources, which Alaska is so wealthy

(09:52):
and us as an extension, all of the US, we're
so lucky to have. This has to be sustainably managed.
And this was a nineteen for D six or than
the fifties when it became a full state, and it
has to. They wouldn't allow fish farming on the off shore.
Now they do complement it with some hatchery fish. They

(10:13):
do do some shellfish aquaculture, some mariculture, but it's all
wild caught and it's all sustainable if it's coming out
of Alaska. It's kind of one of those stamps and
brands that says like eat me, I'm good. Well that
that's the thing. Same thing with shrimp though, I mean
shrimp boats. They're freezing them impractically on the boats around
the docks. And I mean, you want to get that
fish that that it's good. And I I am very

(10:34):
much a a true believer in in fish that is
from the Gulf. I mean because I guess it might
have something to do it because I read that book
Real Food, Fake Food by Larry Oldenstead. I don't know
if you've probably read it as well, but there are
some scary stories about fish coming out of other countries
and what they're how shrimp at least, and the nitrates

(10:54):
that they're putting into them and all these different like chemicals.
And I'm like, I do not I I literally I
only eat shrimp unless I'm buying it from you because
I know it's from the Gulf. I mean, actually, there's
another there's another guy who's doing that who I had
on a podcast a couple of weeks ago, who also
is selling fish, but he's very very local. It's called
it's called Our Harvest, and and he's doing he's doing
a little bit of that too, but he's more of

(11:16):
a he's doing vegetables and all sorts of stuff. But
it is interesting that you really want to stay to
the Gulf shrimp. I mean literally, and I go to
a restaurant, I usually don't order shrimp because of that.
I'm like, I don't know where If it's not coming
from you, I'm not I'm not doing it. And and
the difference in flavor is just it is. It is
so different, and I can always tell that. And then

(11:36):
where I really find the difference is the next day,
if I have left over shrimp and it's a Gulf shrimp,
it still tastes great. Yeah, people focus on the wrong
thing sometimes with food, right, And you ever hear people
talking about like, oh man, that that cocktail party that
was that was a fantastic party. Do you see the
size of those shrimp? And it's like size or shrimp?
I mean, what are we talking about here? Like, it's

(11:58):
about the flavor. It's your ace, Like shrimp not necessarily
be this blown up, inflated created animal. Mark. Not to
jump not to jump around too much. But you you
reminded me here of the time we were rolled into
Landmark and I brought Austin and Wayne. Austin Salers and
Wayne Winters, and those are the two salmon fishermen who

(12:19):
had a couple of months off and flew down to
New York. They called me on the phone and they
were like, hey, Sean, hey listen, we're gonna be in Washington.
And we thought we'd just hop over to New York
and see you. I was like, what are you guys
doing in d C. They're like, no, we're gonna be
in in Washington like Seattle, and it's it's just so
easy to get to New York, Like we're already out

(12:39):
of Alaska. And they came and they we ate and
you stuffed us and they'd never been was the time
Warner Center, and it was so cool. And that's when
we were talking about co host salmon and coh being
a leaner wild salmon. It's not the same as a
you know, kind of fatty, grain fed, farmed salmon. And
how do we get diners to appreciate that wild fat

(13:03):
that's got, you know, a different texture, a different flavor,
different taste than what they're used to. And I know
I'm jumping over left and right around here, but that
was that was such a cool day when you were
able to meet those guys. Well, you know, I I
used to because I was never a waiter. I always
stayed in the back of the house most of the time.
And and and this is something that in my waite
staff would be like, well, people aren't They're they're telling

(13:25):
me that salmon is not what they're used to other restaurants.
And I was like, well, because this is Alaskan salmon,
that's actually real salmon. And they're like, yeah, but they
like the other stuff. They're they're more used to the
other stuff. And I was like, I would just scratch
my head and I was literally I would say to
the waiters, well, why don't you tell them the farm
raised stuff is just running around in a big bucket
and they have to feed it these pellets and antibiotics

(13:48):
and and and to grow it so it doesn't get sick.
It's living in its own toilet bowl, and and you
want to eat that. And I'm like, they're like, I
don't think we could say that to the table. I'm like, no,
you probably can't. But but that's the way I felt.
And it's it's it's it's true. It's like, this is
the real stuff. Let's get It's the same thing with shrimp, right,
And it's I think I think you and I are

(14:09):
you know, my grandparents were my my one set of
grandparents were on the south shore Long Island, right by
Jones Inlet, and I grew up fishing right there and
in the inside and on the outside, and like you
grow up around and you have a very good comfort
to shell fish and fish and different kinds of fish.
And the other set we're up in Cape Cod. And
the difference between a really good wild caught fish that

(14:32):
you know where it comes from and something that's just
on the supermarket shelf is to me not just the taste,
but it's also the health aspect. It's what are you
putting in your body and you know where it's coming from.
And it's hard, and you don't want to preach from
a mantel and you don't want to tell oh, I
grew up around this, But that's part of the fun
and responsibility of like what we do is to educate

(14:54):
people and to not only kind of tell them what
your options are, but figure out how to get it
to them. So but it's great, but it's great that
the company like yours, I could just order from you
and I know I'm getting the right stuff. Yeah, well
we've got we've got blinders on. We have a very
narrow focus of what we do. And the nice thing
is is, you know, in the United States, we catch

(15:16):
a lot of really beautiful fish that needs markets and
you know, crazy numbers, but we import over nine of
the seafood we consume in this country. Right, What other
food do we import over of Aha? All the fish
we catch, we ex support a majority of it. It's
like it just literally just like cross at the borders

(15:36):
and we get rid of our fish and we bring
in other people's fish. And that's where we that's where
we're looking to make that big change and say, hey,
let's let's look at home. Let's see what we're catching.
And from what I remember from that book real food,
fake food, I guess most of the fish there's not
that's being imported. It does not get inspected. Only like
one of fish that gets imported from outside of our

(15:58):
country actually has is able to be checked up on
to see if it's actually full of crap or not. Yeah,
in a big percentage of that gets rejected. Let's let's

(16:20):
get down to what does responsibly caught fish mean? Like,
is there what's the definition of that? And I think
that's something because I I look at it and I
see these huge fishing boats that just go catch everything
and they take what they want and they throw everything
back that they don't want, and they keep what they want.
But what does responsible fishing look like? And that obviously
the people that you work with are are those types

(16:42):
of people. We look at this and think about this
and talk about this a lot. It's super complicated. You know,
they say, counting fish in the ocean is like counting
trees in the forests if you can't see them right.
You're trying to figure out what your population levels are,
You're trying to figure out if your gear type is
having excessive negative impact onto the environment you're seeing, you know,

(17:04):
what's the biology of each fish? And we're not scientists,
so we're taking the best data that we possibly can.
We're taking the advice of other NGOs and and sustainable
minded organizations like the Monterey Bay Aquarium into account to
decide what we feel good about and that what we
feel comfortable at the end of the day that we
can proudly say, you know what, this is something that

(17:27):
we can get behind and tell other people to eat
safely and sustainably as well. There's three major factors that
come into it. You look at the biology of the fish.
All fish are different. There's tons of different species of fish.
Some fish like smaller fish, they multiply like bucks, and
they've just got huge blooms of biomass. Others are larger,

(17:49):
longer living, less reproductive fish like your tor swordfish and
your tunas. So you know you're more safe eating the
ones that reproduce and repopulate then you are the slower
growing ones. Although it doesn't mean one's good ones bad,
because you have to look at what's the management. Is
their proper scientific back management with enforceable measures to say

(18:13):
that you're not going to take more out of that
population than can replenish itself in any given time frame, right,
And that's a sustainable harvest. You want to let it
regrow and be there and and just basically be a
natural resource piggy bank that you can keep going to
and you don't just wipe out all at once. And
then the last part is you think about what's my

(18:36):
harvest method and my gear type. How am I catching
these fish and removing them from the environment, and is
it affecting others? Do I buy catch? Do I have
environmental destruction? So you take kind of those three measurements
and you put it together and you you look at
those numbers and you say either yes or no. But
the beautiful thing is that nineties seven percent, some high

(18:58):
nineties percentile number of US American fisheries are considered sustainable
and the ones that aren't are currently in rebuilding patterns
because it's written into our laws that each management zone
within the US has to be responsible for not over
fished species and overfishing not occurring. So as long as

(19:21):
you have those two measures, and you have you have
the police thing and the enforcement in place, you're you know,
we're going to feel good about the species we can eat.
And how do you vet your partners that you're working
with for the for these types of the people that
you buy phone? Basically, I mean, what what what do
they look like? You know, give me a little description
of those people? First of all, what do their what

(19:42):
do their offices look like? You know? Can you can
you can you paint the picture for me? And and
how do you decide who's gonna who you're gonna be
buying from? Deciding which species is something that's kind of
done on paper, and it's done a little bit in
the abstract because it's overall populations and fishery management and
harvest level holes. But then there's actors within those, right,

(20:03):
there's their actual docks that receive fishers, boats that go
out and fish. And it's not such a big industry
that you know, it's not known. And that's what I've
been doing since I graduated college for the last fourteen
fifteen years is traveling every coastline around America and meeting
these guys. So the first few years, before anyone would

(20:26):
ever believe that we could do what we could do,
which is take their fish and ship it overnight to
chefs or to pack it up and send it to
individuals homes. Uh, I did a lot of walking on
the docks and trying to like sell myself to these
guys of give me a chance, let me buy your fish.
These are not you know, suburban office complex, These are

(20:48):
not high rises in midtown. These are exactly what you
would think of, which I romanticized as like the coolest
places in the country. There port towns and docks, their
fish houses and boats. They're working waterfronts with salty asked
people who live by the sea and make their living

(21:13):
from the wild. They you know, I'm a like Dougheye
hand lanky, tall, pale guy that grew up in like
suburban New Jersey and going around and trying to, you know,
tell them that I I've got a business I'm trying
to start that will bring more value to their fish.

(21:35):
And it took a while, but through the years, you
meet good actors, you meet bad actors. You figure out
that you want to surround yourself with people who are
like minded. You want to be able to sleep at
night and trust your partners, and you want to feel
really good about what you do at the end of
the day. And so those meetings are still my absolute pleasure.
I love to travel to the coasts. I've been tied

(21:57):
down like everybody else for the last couple of months,
but Mark, I'd love to. I mean, we've we've just
missed on a couple of trips. But when you get
out there and you know you're down in Buyo, Louisiana
and you're just sucking on crawfish boils, or you're up
in Alaska and you're eating sable fish collars in the
back of a boat, I find that to be just

(22:17):
the pinnacle of my career. That is amazing. I mean
that that to me is I mean, I've always said
to you and I always want to I want to
get on one of those boats. I want to go
meet these people. I want to go shake their probably
very rough hands that are you know, those pulling ropes
and traps and so on and so forth. And it's
it's it's always a yeah, it's I love that picture.

(22:39):
I love the idea of of fishing. I love I
love all of it, first of all, and I mean
it starts with me loving to eat it and cook it.
So as much as I can to try to inspire
people to do more of that, I think it's it's
it's important. I mean, cooking the perfect scallop to me
is some one thing I learned while cook while working
in France and Paris, and it's a it's it's a
beautiful thing. You've mentioned something just a minute ago about

(23:02):
and I can't remember the name of by catch? Is
that the that you you was? That a term that's
used so bycatch is basically, you got a net out
you're trying to catch let's say bass, and all of
a sudden you get a fish in there that you
don't want, and it doesn't really sell. That's bycatch? Is
that correct? Exactly? It's like an unintended harvest, right, So

(23:22):
you're targeting one species, you catch another. So it was
an interesting story for me to understand by catch a
little bit more. And it's oddly enough, I learned about
it on the set of Chopped, where one day they
brought in this fish called the dog fish. And of
course I know dog fish because there's a beer called
dog fish, right, And it's literally it's a small shark, right,
Am I correct about that small coastal shark? And it

(23:46):
is a big bycatch, I guess from what I understood.
So we were trying to educate people about dog fish,
and we had three chefs cooked this. There was one
guy who was I think he might have worked for
Danielle or or maybe Jeanjeans or something like that, very
high skilled French chef. He debones it and he basically
does a little lemon thing with some time and he

(24:07):
steams it and he and it was I I ate it,
and I was like, this guy made it taste as
good as like a turbo, which is one of my
other favorite fish in the Mediterranean from from France or wherever, right,
And I eat this thing, I'm blown away. I'm like,
why have I never heard of this fish? So then
I look it up and I call. I don't know
who I called. I don't think you guys were selling it.
I was calling one of my purveyors. Can I get
this stuff? He goes, yeah, we got a bunch of

(24:28):
this stuff and it's it's cheap as hell. And I
was like, oh, this is great, good for food costs.
So we brought it in and I brought my chefs together.
I said, listen, there's a stuff called dog fish. I
had it on chopped. It's delicious. I've never heard of it.
If you guys, nobody ever heard of it. So we
started using it. We came up with ways we put
it on as a special, and all of a sudden
it dawned on me during pre meal. I'm like, oh,

(24:49):
what are we gonna? Is there another name? Why we
can't go tell our customers are special today as dog fish?
And one of my waiters he looked at me and goes, well,
why not there's catfish. I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right. Okay. Anyway,
we ended up selling it. We were, and then I
looked into it a little bit more. And it turns
out did you know, I didn't know this, but they

(25:10):
actually they sell it to England because it's really good
for fish and chips. So I guess a lot of
dog fish is actually kept and it's the bycatch and
and it's filed and ready, and it goes off and
it goes to England for fish and chips. I had
no idea. Yeah, that's you know what the the the
Atlantic cod kind of the famous fish is has populations

(25:31):
have declined. What is left is expensive, and you know,
chip shops aren't exactly talking about hot cuisine here, and
what are they going to do to sub in? Dog
Fish is one of the main fish we we always
hear that, we always say it. We buy a lot
of fish off of the Chatham Peer and Chatham Cape
Cod and they catch a lot of dog fish, and
they catch so much dog fish that it is exported.

(25:57):
It goes to Europe because of France, goes to Italy,
goes to UK for fish and chips, it goes to Korea.
As Americans, we buy almost none of it, and it
has taken over the ecosystem. It's a one of those
kind of lower down the food chain. Predators where cod
have been removed, dog fish and skate and other fish
come up and boom, you have this huge population. We

(26:19):
don't know what to do with it. Fishermen are allowed
to sustainably taken over fifty million pounds a year, but
the only harvest around million, because that's all the market
there is to actually pay them for it. They have
five or six thousand pound trip limits and they usually
get maybe twenty eight to forty cents a pound on

(26:39):
the fish. So it's a workhorse fishery. So what is this?
Is this a fish that you would maybe try because
we obviously it's a you have to eat it. It's
got to be fished. It's right, it's it's I think
it's delicious. Is that a fish that you could probably
sell it to people? If there was? If we look,
I'll do the videos, I'll cook, I'll show people how
to cook this stuff. You filet put it in a package,

(27:00):
send it to my house. Let's try to get this
stuff sold in this country. Are we gonna call it
like puppy fish? Where are we gonna go with this week?
I don't know, you know, I'm just after my waiter said,
you know this catfish, Why not dog fish. I'm like,
you're right, let's just call it dog fish because there
is another scientific name for it, isn't we do? We
do the same thing, and it's got a lot of
weird names. They call it rock salmon, they call it,

(27:21):
you know, people just will will try to paint it
a different lipstick shade and and say it's not what
it is. But dog fish is delicious and it's there.
And so we started working with college universities on it.
So we supply dog fish to Ohio State, We supply
dog fish to University of Michigan. We supply dog fish
to a bunch of big dining services and figure out

(27:43):
how to get it in as a healthy, delicious, sustainable
protein into their dining halls. How are they preparing it?
Are they making fish and chips of it? You know
what's super cool is we actually started working Ohio State
did recipe development with us and worked with a local
co packer where we take fish bouton Chatham Process in
New Bedford, Massachusetts, put into skinless, boneless like portions for

(28:07):
five ounce portions brought to this co packer who does
and all natural breading to it, refreezes the i QF
and then pops it in as their fish and chips.
And it's been for the last few years. Ohousetate University
has been doing this breaded dog fish that they custom
do their own spice blend and it works really well
on campus. And it's a huge win because if Ohio

(28:30):
States doing just you know, ballpark numbers say they do
forty pounds of these portions, you only get a yield
off the fish into that portion. So forty pounds of
portions actually a hundred and sixty thousand pounds of fish.
And if you can pay a fisherman an extra five
cents or ten cents a pound over that or forty

(28:52):
cents a pound, it's a huge number, all right. That's
that's a big, big difference. And that's just by you know,
a main like a large institutional feeder like oh State
decided to do some responsible sourcing like they do across
the board and saying we're gonna pay a little more
for it. And it's got these enormous impacts on the water.
And that's that's where we're having a lot of fun too.

(29:14):
That's pretty amazing. I love I love the idea that
when when businesses are are actually impacting the world in
a great way. And obviously you guys have been doing
this for a while. But I did read something which
I had no idea about. But I need to ask
you that you guys are a B corp and this
has something to do with you guys being good people.
I don't know what this means. What what is a
B corp bean and what's the what's the what's the

(29:36):
point of it? And maybe maybe I'm completely off base.
Maybe it's just some ridiculous thing. You have to payperwork
for it. I don't know. Yeah, exactly, we have to.
We just we pay for this card we carry round
on our wallet that says like we're okay, we're good humans.
We promised, we passed the test. We do a yearly
assessment and we pay. We happily pay a fee for
be Corps started. We've been a B corp for twelve

(30:00):
years now, since the business started. We heard about it
years ago and it's started out that there was this
idea that it didn't have to be a C corp
burnesque Corps born LLC, but businesses could elect to not
only return value to their shareholders, but to their stakeholders.

(30:21):
So you as a business impact lots of people, right you.
You impact your customers, you impact your suppliers, you impact
the environments, you impact your employees. And what if we
got together and set up some standards, or at least
if not standards, we benchmarked ourselves and we work towards
improvements constantly, and we're really proud of it. It's something
that I think a lot of people do don't necessarily

(30:42):
talk about. It's really nice that you can kind of
just slap a logo and it's almost like a wink
and a nod that you're part of the club. But
to us, it just is a reflection of our values
that we've always had, which are, you know, try to
do good, try to make the right choices, treat people right,
and those are basic tenants. They get into a quantifying

(31:02):
measure where you can say, hey, if if I'm doing
x per cent of waste every single year through my production,
how do I bring it down by ten percent every
year over the next ten years? And I want to
set that self as a goal and I'm going to
meet it. So what are the rules to be a
b corp? And who's monitoring this to see if you
can still be a B corp. Like, is there a
like could I go on a website and find out

(31:23):
all the companies that are doing this and and you know,
use them. How does that work? I wish I was
ready for the plug. It's going to be easy to
find as B corp. I'm guessing it's be corp up COOM.
It's it's measured and audited by b Labs, which is
part of their assessment process. So I think you just apply.
There are some states where you actually are designated as

(31:46):
a corporate legal entity as a B corp, and there's
some ways that you are have you keep your existing
corporate structure, but are a certified B corp through b
labs meeting. You adhere to all the guidelines, you pass
all its tests, you're doing the right things, but your
corporate structure doesn't actually need to change. And I'm not
sure where they are with that because we started a

(32:06):
long time ago, but they're pretty fantastic. They know that,
you know, businesses are made of humans, and that humans
affect other humans, and that like we're here together. So
if you have a will and I'll want to emphasize
the good you do, they would be willing to work
with you to set your own measures and say, hey,
let's move forward. That's really kind of cool. I mean

(32:27):
there's also that there's that other club you can be in,
which is I mean the Monterey Seafood Watch you mentioned
that earlier. I mean they have they have their own app.
It's called, I think the seafood Watch app that you
can have on your phone and it depends on the
type of fish and it tells you if this fish
is over fish. But but they're constantly monitoring, you know,
what's going on in the world fish fish wise, and

(32:48):
is this is this a do you guys talk to
them a lot? Or do you guys? You know, are
you part of their organization? Are you in their club?
I don't know how what you'd call it. Yeah, they're
They're great. They're probably one of the best known across
the US of sustainability rankings. You know, how do I
think about this when I go to the store to
buy fish and they break it down to red, avoid, yellow,

(33:11):
good alternative, and green best choice, so that you don't
have to know all the ins and outs like we
do on being a true and bona fide fish geek
that you can reference an app or look at a
guide and and feel good about the choices you make.
And they employ a staff as scientists out based around
the Monterey Bay Aquarium and they're constantly reaching out to chefs,

(33:33):
thought leaders, culinarians and consumers to try to drive a
consciousness about your choices and the impacts on the environment.
And for that we're we're super grateful and supportive in
any way we can with them. But they're fun and
we we get into it. I mean, we'll we'll, we'll,
we'll say, hey, I saw your latest assessment of this,
did you think about And you know, we'll have it

(33:56):
back and forth, a good professional conversation, and oftentimes they
change our minds and sometimes we change theirs. But it's
all in the spirit of of getting towards progress. That's awesome. Yeah, No,
I mean the whole thing is getting to a point
where people understand more. I mean, you were just mentioning
earlier about those smaller fish that reproduce more, and they're
smaller and the bigger ones take longer to take longer

(34:18):
to get whatever. But usually I feel like when I
look at the Monterey babes, if food watch, things like
all the little sardines. All the little guys are all like, yes,
go they're green, eat eating meeting, But they're also really
good for you because they're they're oily, and they're like
really good for your body to write, isn't that a
lot of those little tiny fish are really really good
for you? I mean, listen. I for lunch yesterday, I
had a can of sardines. I'm not gonna lie. I

(34:39):
love a can of sardines with a toasted baguette and
a little slab of butter. But you know that's the
way I do it. I you know what, I I
want to get more Americans that direction because it's wonderful. Right.
We all talk about that Mediterranean diet, but there's truly
something to it. And if we could eat grilled fresh
sardines every day, or you know what. Favorite My favorite

(35:01):
is a cocktail blue fish caught in the morning I
did for breakfast in the grille, and it's like it's
one of my favorite cleanest, freshest fish. And other people
would say, you know, it's too oily, and you know
it's it's it's too fishy. I'm not a big fishy guy,
Like I don't like hard hearted Mommy's but eating good
fresh local fishes is it's a no brainer. I mean,

(35:23):
you know, when I think about those little fish and
talk about freshes, what are those little white baitings? Is white?
There's little what are the little whiting little fried whding.
So David pastornak at Esca, I don't know if you've
ever been at his restaurant, he's a magician with fish.
He's he's as he describes himself, he's a he's a
fisherman that happens to be a chef, but an amazing
cheferd that, but he always he's does We're gonna fry

(35:44):
those up there, their little their fries with eyes. That's
the whole fish. I mean that, with a squeeze a lemon.
It's the best you've ever had in your life. So Dave.
Dave is in Long Beach, which is to Jones Beach
on Long On and on the south shore of Long Island,
and my grandfather and grandparents have lived in a town

(36:06):
called Point Lookout, which is right next to the Long Beach,
right between Jumps Beach for the last fifty something years,
and Dave and Aready and a couple other guys were
the little Rascal kids and my Grandpa's Marina when they
were growing up. And Dave, you know, he's taught me
a lot of things through the years that we've gone
on fishing together. And one of the one of the

(36:28):
best things is Dave he really taught me to listen
in respect to the older guys. And you know, he's
like basically because it's almost like generation gaps between us,
but he'd like slapped me upside the head a little
bit if you if you ever saw me getting wise,
and he say, you know, these guys have caught more
fish and you've caught in your life you ever will
catch in your life. You listen to these guys, you
learn from them. And that's something that's always stuck with me,

(36:50):
is you know, close your mouth, open your eyes and
listen to the older crowd, especially the guys who've been
out there on the water for years and years, like
what are you going to tell them? And so think
Dave brought that really with him, and he brings his
love and his passion to cooking, and so you you
get a chance to read his books or listen to
him about fish, and he's it. He's a whisperer. Well
It's very funny you say that story, because you know,

(37:12):
he was my first soux chef when I was a
young cook. He was, and he gave me that exact
same speech about the kitchen one day. I could still
remember it well. He yelled at me a lot because
I was a young whipper snapper and I was always
like talking back, and probably he took me into the
office one day, and that was the walk in because
you shut the door, you could lock it and you
could scream out you and nobody would hear it. And

(37:33):
he goes, listen, you come to work, you listen to everything.
You stopped talking back, and you listen to what you
want to keep. You keep, but you don't want to keep.
You leave it alone. But just shut the hell up
and do what you do, what you're supposed to do.
And I was always that was That was one of
the speeches he gave me. And the other speech he
gave me, which I always found very funny, is yeah,
I was nineteen twenty years old, young line cook. You

(37:55):
know my first job, I was out partying, you know,
I was a line cook out party. And I remember
I got to work two hours late one day and
I had to be at work. I think it too,
And he looks at me and he goes, murf, where
were you I go? I slept, I overslept. I'm sorry,
it's four o'clock. What do you mean you overslept? And
he basically said, somebody else is working your station. You

(38:16):
have to Yeah. I had to literally peel a hundred
pounds of white onions and slice them very thin on
the slicer. And then he took those onions and made
it and and just swept them down and made a
soup with it. So it's basically a filling a hole
and digging a ditch. But then at the end of
the night he comes in. He comes and he goes
when I was back in the office and the walk
and he goes, Murph, sometimes you gotta go home and

(38:37):
have milk and cookies. Enough with the party in. So

(38:58):
let's move on to what what's does that? What does
this looks like in the future? Are we going in
the right direction? What what's going on? You know for fishing?
Um is what's the new trend? I don't know. I
know dover soul is very very sort of hip. Is
there is there a new trend coming? I mean besides
eating Gulf shrimp, which of course we're going to make
that a trend. But what else you have to see
coming or download line here? Yeah, and can I assume

(39:20):
you're you're gonna just edit this and make make me
sound fantastic and like we can jump around a little
bit or we're just going straight through. It doesn't matter.
People love listening to us talk about whatever. It's fine.
You know. The thing that I'm going to just put
you and Dave passed back together in another lesson that
you all taught me is you treat You treat people well.
And that's something that Dave had met me at the

(39:42):
kitchen door. Every single time you did the same thing,
and you listen and you respect people. And I just
wanted to pay that homage to you. Mark. You've always
done that. You always treat people fairly and with kindness
and with time, and you give them the attention. And
that's something that everyone should really absorb and pass on.
And so you learn good lessons, you keep the good ones,
you let the other ones go. Exactly two things I

(40:05):
think that are going on in seafood, like it's the
hottest new TikTok trend. You can imagine one I want to.
I want to geek out and tell you all about
frozen fish because I think people are finally starting to
get around to frozen food, especially when you're stock in
your pantries and like worrying about what's next. Is maybe
people are finally open their ideas. Every time I've moved
to a new place, I make sure the first thing

(40:27):
I buy is a chest freezer. The next thing I
buy is a webber grow and I eat out of
my chest freezer. I always have and catching fish growing up,
you eat what chicken fresh, and you freeze the rest
as quickly as you can. You don't wait and waste it.
You predestined to say, hey, this is gonna feed me
for a while. And it's the same thing we do
with our boats. They don't go out. The old school

(40:48):
way of thinking is that you know, you go to
the fish market and you get the fish, and you
try to sell it on Monday. If you can't sell
it on Monday, you try to sell it on Tuesday.
You can't sell it on Tuesday, you try to sell
it on Wednesday. You dress it up, you make a
good sign on Thursday, and if you can't sell it
on Friday, you freeze it, right, And that's that's kind
of what people have an experience of frozen fish of

(41:08):
like fish fingers and smelly frozen fish. Not anymore. I
mean the boats, the salmon boats that we're fishing for
you and still fish for our e commerce, they have
blast freezers in them that bring temperatures down to negative
eighty degrees fahrenheit on whole fish within sixty seconds. It
is insane. I mean this scallops are frozen liquid nitrogen

(41:30):
Willie Wonka tunnels shortly after being shocked from the sea.
You're basically taking the freshest, best ingredients in peak season
and shocking them. And if you think about it, and
you just cut me off and just wave your hands,
if I just keep talking too much. But we're all
made of the same thing. We're all made of water, right,
That's our cellular structure is almost entirely water. And when

(41:52):
you freeze, water expands, right, And so what happens when
you freeze slowly is water expands slowly and you get
a lot of cellular damage your structure within the flesh
of the fish. Those cells expand slowly if you free slowly,
and they break and then if you refresh quickly, like
you try to run it underwater, or you you defrosted

(42:13):
in the microwave, it does the inverse and it collapses
and all this water leaks out and it's really gross,
it's mushy. But if you freeze really quickly, you're basically
suspending and trapping the freshness of that fish. And so
you shock it, you almost just boom. You put a
stop on time, and then you hold it at super

(42:34):
coold temperatures and you refresh it gently over time. And
you thought under refrigeration and you can't tell. I mean,
we say, we say, we say frozen is fresher than fresh,
because oftentimes a really good piece of frozen fish is
better than anything you can find at the supermarket. That's
a beautiful description of it. And I think that that

(42:54):
that makes so much sense. And thank you for thank
you for painting that picture for me, because I think
those it's something that i've I've I've learned now as well.
But when you're saying you're thawing it out, you just
put it in the refrigerator. What about Because I always
I've always been taught as a chef, you put everything,
you put it under cold water. You put it in
cold water, and you let like if you're if you're

(43:14):
throwing out a chicken. You leave it on the counter.
It takes like a day and a half. But if
you put it into a hotel pan or a bucket
or whatever and put cold water, and it thaws out
much more evenly and much quicker. I mean, cellular structures
like everything they want to homeal states that they want
to even this. And so you have a transfer of
heat under cold water. That's going to be slower than

(43:36):
sitting out into a counter and and sweating, but it
happens more fluidly and smoother, so it actually happens quicker.
I mean, the best way to do it like when
we do it at our docks, because we will do
frozen at sea, fish caught, gutted, bled blast, frozen at sea,
and we'll bring it back after the end of the

(43:57):
trip and we'll refresh it and then filet it, pin
bone it and portionate and prison again twice frozen. But
that twice frozen is the best you ever had. And
when you bring it back up, we actually put it
in bubblers and it's like a massaging cold water that's slowly,
kind of like it's science fiction. I mean we're talking
about like fish coming coming back from being two hours

(44:17):
old to right back to that freshness of being two
hours old. Well, a lot of people, a lot of
people don't know that most of the sushi fish is frozen.
I mean they have to freeze it, don't They have
to freeze it? Yeah, that's most health department County health
departments say you have to do parasite destruction prevention, which
is bringing it down under a certain tempsterature over a
certain period of time. I mean, I one of the

(44:40):
things I'm I'm really lucky. I mean, you you get
surrounded by really good food. And one of the things
that I kind of find myself constantly surrounded by is
really good fish. And you know, I've chosen that life.
And how do I eat I eat out a hundred
times frozen fish and it's wonderful. And I don't do
it in any sacrifice. I do it out of quality

(45:01):
and ease and convenience in price, and so I don't
think twice about it. And that's kind of the idea
of our e commerce businesses. How do you how do
you copy what you do at home? And what you
do with your own fish and what you do for
your family, and how do you do that across the country.
How do you make that more widely available, because if
we started to think about frozen fish, you'd probably start

(45:24):
switching this whole importing and exporting because you can actually
capture those fish that are available and eat them year
round when you can and when the price cig is
the best. And so you know, we're huge. I'm huge.
I could go on forever. I'm this is this is
a great this is great education. I mean, it's obviously

(45:45):
I want to I want to give your you know,
see the table dot com a plug here, but I
also wanted to, you know, hear your insight on on
why you're doing what you're doing. And this is exactly
what I wanted to do. I have one last question
for you, and it has something to do with coming
out of the sea. But it's not a fish. It's kelp.
Can you give me your what do you what do
you what are your thoughts? What do you think? I
just to give your heads up. I I've been talking

(46:07):
about this a lot. I read that book I Eat
Like a Fish by Brent Smith, and it was it
was I was eye opening. And then I got to
with Melissa Clark got to cook a lot of different
dishes that had not you know, all sort of interpretations
of kelp and I loved it. I thought it was great.
Are you what are your thoughts? And are you going
to be selling that? Because I would buy it. You know,

(46:29):
sometimes you wish you had like more than one life
to live. I think kelp is so cool. I think
it is a frontier that we're just tapping into. And
I've I've eaten and had a hundred different ways between
chips and kelp noodles and smoothies, and it's a no
brainer to me. I mean from an environmental standpoint, there's

(46:50):
just this reproductivity and fertility to the ocean producing vegetables, right,
and so can we figure out how to harvest two
thirds of the earth and can we figure out how
to take these nutrient rich vegetables and like bring them
back into our diet. It's still a little outer spacey,
like people are still like, oh my gosh, seaweed and
not sushi, Like how do you you're gonna eat that?

(47:12):
As like kelp noodles with a sauce. But I think
it's awesome. And you know there's a couple of great
companies out there, Barnacle Foods brand over at Thimble Island,
figuring out how to make this happen. And I have
absolutely We're we're kind of just now keeping up with
all the demand on the e commerce and home delivery,

(47:34):
and we're gonna soon be introducing a whole bunch of
new species and and new fish. And I really hope
that kelp is part of the offering. I think it's
just something that Americans will definitely benefit from. Well, that'd
be great. I did when I was recipe testing and
playing around with kelp with Melissa, we roasted a chicken
where we took I think it was carrots, onions, and

(47:54):
potatoes and tossed it with a bunch of kelp in
olive oil and garlic, and we laid it on the
bottom of a row sing pan and we had one
of those grills to put and we we trust the
chicken and put it on top of it. And that
chicken cooked with all of these vegetables and the kelp
below it. And what was amazing about it is the
kelp that was on the bottom was just flavorful and suppulent,

(48:16):
and it just just it was just delicious, and then
on the top it got crispy and crunchy. And the
two contrasts of the kelp with the vegetables, with the
onions and the carrots, and then the chicken that coming
down it was mind blowing. We were both like, oh
my gosh, this was amazing. So yeah, I need to
try to recreate that and try to get more of that,
get more of that in my diet. Let's put it

(48:37):
that way. That sounds to me like a chicken lobster bake.
It's sort of. It was, it was, it was. I
gotta tell you, it was amazing. Steam it up. That
sounds awesome. You know. One other thing I think, uh,
super super cool, and I think people are gonna get
really hip on because they already have is we've always
and we've worked with you in your restaurants to it

(48:58):
is full fish utilization, right, and it's figuring out how
to use all the parts of the fish. And I'm
not talking about like fish gizzards and tails and fins,
but when you're cutting perfect little center portion cuts, you
still have napes and necks and bellies and tails, and
you have pieces that don't miss and make and you know,
other proteins will make chicken nuggets or they'll make ground.

(49:21):
We've teamed up with a really cool company called Imperfect Foods,
who their mission is to go and find, you know,
vegetables that are too ugly to put into a retail
case and find a home form. And we just started
talking and we said, hey, listen, we've got these awesome
Alaskan saki salmon or coo salmon or shrimp pieces that

(49:41):
break in the peeling process. And what do you say
that we figure out how to take really good, high
quality proteins, even if they're not perfect in their form,
and you get them into people's homes. And chefs have
been doing this forever, right you You know, you see
a steel from a purveyor and you say, I want
to give that. I'll make a delicious food out of that.

(50:03):
Now that's that's awesome. I love that you guys are
always on the forefront and and looking to expand your
business in that sense, and and it's all all under
the eyes of using all the product and it's really
really cool. I want to thank you. I think you've
you've you've enlightened me, as you always do. Every time
I see you, so you know when you tell me,
I'm gracious and I used to come out of the
kitchen and talk to you every time. It was probably

(50:23):
a selfish thing, is I knew I was going to
learn something when I talked to you, so that this
is exactly why I wanted to have you on the
podcast today. And I want to thank you and hope
everybody's doing well at your house and your company. And
until next time, I think we'll be able to, you know,
discuss more things about fishing. By the way, I definitely
want to take you up one of those fishing trips.
And if I'm out on Long Island as well, So
if Paster Necks going out and you're with him, you

(50:44):
better call me because I'm coming with you. Guys. We'll
pick you up on the way and we'll have plenty
of time to uh to chew the fat. This was
really nice. Thanks for having me Mark, awesome man. Thanks
so much, they can said,