Super Sustainable Seafood (now say that 5 times fast!)

Sustainability -- you know the word, but can you define it in reference to our fishy friends?
 
This is a "green" detail that I am seeing more and more requests for made by meeting planners and groups.  Not only are people wanting to green their meetings by reducing paper and plastic waste, they also wish to eat food that was obtained through measures that did not harm the ocean environment (I'm sure we all agree that there has been enough of that this summer with the oil spill).

A recent article on CNN.com's food blog website, Eatocracy, defined what "sustainable" actually means and went into greater detail on sustainable seafood efforts within the United States.  "In a nutshell (or clamshell, in this case), in the context of seafood, 'sustainable' means harvesting and consuming at a rate that will not deplete fish and other marine life faster than their populations can replenish - and there are plenty of factors that weigh into this...[such as] overfishing, climate changes, physical damage to the environment..." 

Two key organizations that educate fishers, buyers, and consumers on how to make sustainable choices for seafood are the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Seafood Choices Alliances. 

Source

To keep your property in line with the desires of clients, encourage your chefs to download the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch application to receive notifications and e-mails about what seafood is a good, sustainable buy for the current time of year. 


Written by:
Meghan Bollenback
Food and Beverage Manager
R. David Thomas Executive Hotel & Conference Center