Future of Fish

Who We Are | Swimming Upstream

  • Richard Boot : Fort Collins, Colorado

    Founder and president of FishChoice Inc., an online matching service for buyers and suppliers of sustainable fish

  • Jerry Knecht : Bali, Indonesia

    Founder and president of North Atlantic, Inc., a primary processor, importer, and distributor of fresh and frozen seafood, and sustainability pioneer

  • Barton Seaver : Washington, DC

    Chef, speaker, National Geographic Fellow, and author of the sustainable seafood cookbook For Cod and Country

  • Miguel Jorge : Washington, DC

    Director of the National Geographic Society’s Ocean Initiative working with an array of partners to restore ocean health and productivity

  • Ed Backus : Portland, Oregon

    Vice president of community ecosystem services at Ecotrust, and founder of the $6 million North Pacific Fisheries Trust

  • Dune Lankard : Cordova, Alaska

    Native Athabaskan Eyak fisherman from the Alaskan Copper River Delta and founder of Copper River Wild Salmon

  • Thomas Kraft : Seattle, Washington

    Founder of Norpac Fisheries Export, a successful processing and distribution business dedicated to accountability, responsibility, traceability & sustainability

  • Sean & Michael Dimin : Brooklyn, NY

    Founders of Sea to Table, a business that overnights fresh fish caught by small-scale sustainable fishermen around the world to top restaurants

  • Kristofor Lofgren : Portland, Oregon

    Ecopreneur and founder of the nation’s first MSC certified sustainable sushi restaurant, Bamboo Sushi

  • Village Fishmonger : New York, NY

    Founders of Village Fishmonger are in the process of launching a seafood retail business selling locally sourced sustainable seafood a la carte or by seasonal subscription.

  • Jared Auerbach : Boston, MA

    Owner and CEO of Red’s Best, an innovative technology and logistics platform that builds efficiency and traceability in order to support small fishing fleets and ensure maximum freshness.

  • Steve Vilnit : Annapolis, MD

    Director of Fisheries Marketing at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, a state-run program that helps watermen increase the value of their harvest through grassroots marketing efforts.

  • Robert Terry : Palo Alto, CA / Newport, OR

    Founder and CTO of Smart Catch LLC, a startup that‘s developing cost-effective, innovative trawl-net fishing gear that will help fishermen increase efficiency and reduce by-catch.

  • Shannon McDiarmid : San Francisco, CA

    President and Director of Safety & Sustainability at Royal Hawaiian Seafood, a premiere Bay Area seafood distributor focused on high-caliber and responsibly produced fresh and live seafood.

Sean & Michael Dimin

Michael is a New Yorker who started Sea to Table with his family as a way to connect fishermen in Tobago with a wider market for their catch. Now the business overnights fresh fish caught by small-scale sustainable fishermen around the world to top restaurants.

How did you get into the seafood business?
I used to be in the packaging business. Then in 1996 my family went on a 10-day trip to Tobago in the West Indies. We spent a week in an idyllic village going out with the local fishermen on their pirogues—25-foot boats. We’d pull monstrous fish out by hand. One day I went fishing with two of my sons and we caught hundreds of pounds of beautiful fish: blackfin tuna, yellowfin tuna, mahimahi. This little village had no external market whatsoever, they just sold fish to each other. A lightbulb went off.

The packaging company wasn’t what I ultimately wanted to do with my life, so in 2003 my oldest son and I returned to Tobago and reconnected with the fishing village. We spent a year building relationships and then built a small processing plant and ice factory. We brought ice to local fishermen in eight different villages, processed their fish, and delivered that fish to chefs primarily in New York City. We called the business Tobago Wild.

How did Sea to Table come about?
With such a small fishery, we immediately maxed out our capacity. Sea to Table started when we decided to expand our supply. My son Sean spent time in Alaska developing relationships with fishermen in small-scale fisheries there. We grew our model to seek out new small-scale sustainable fisheries and find markets for them.

What does “small-scale sustainable fisheries” mean?
It’s knowing our fishermen partners, knowing their method of catch, and knowing that they do things in an appropriate manner. We learn about individual fisheries from local and regional management groups. We vet the docks we work with. We work closely with the Blue Ocean Institute, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and FishChoice to make sure the species are being sustainably managed and properly harvested. We also offer our customers the ability to visit the fisheries so they can see for themselves and don’t have to rely on generalized information.

What are the advantages of this model?
Our model allows for complete traceability and transparency. We ship through third-party logistics, primarily FedEx, and chefs know exactly where the fish came from, how it was caught, and by whom. Instead of being subject to an arcane market distribution system, our fishermen can go directly to high-end users. They love knowing that their fish is being eaten in some of the best restaurants in the country.

What do you envision your role to be in the Future of Fish?
We’re interested in establishing better distribution channels and new ways for product from small-scale sustainable fisheries to get to market.

Do you have a personal favorite among all the fish that’s flown straight from the docks?
When it’s wild salmon season in Alaska, king salmon and sockeyes are my favorites. That’s what we ship from a place called Seldovia Point. It’s in the middle of nowhere.

 

Read the National Geographic Ocean Initiative's profile of Sea to Table and follow Sea to Table's blog on Huffington Post.