Originally published on the Seafood Watch blog. You could say that Seafood Watch, the organization at the forefront of the sustainable seafood movement for the last 20 years, got its start from a little bit of well-intended theft. In 1997, the Monterey Bay Aquarium opened its first major exhibition devoted to a conservation topic, called “Fishing for Solutions.” The exhibit highlighted major threats to ocean ecosystems, such as overfishing, bycatch of unwanted species, and habitat destruction.
As part of the exhibit, developer Jenny Sayre Ramberg placed tent cards in the Aquarium’s Portola Café, showcasing sustainable seafood choices that visitors could make at home. Then a funny thing happened: the cards proved so popular that guests started stealing them.
“Suddenly people started taking the cards home,” says Ken Peterson, Senior Communications Strategist. “We had to print a lot of them, and they weren’t cheap! Basically, people wanted to follow the same principles in their daily lives.”
It turned out to be the birth of a global movement. Before long, a small team of scientists—with help from a Packard Foundation grant—began working out of a small Aquarium-owned building near the American Tin Cannery. Their goal: to develop Seafood Watch as a formal program, providing people with much-needed, practical information. The group was led by Chris Harrold, then head of conservation research; Sue Lisin, research biologist (and still an Aquarium employee); and Steve Webster, an Aquarium founder and director of education (currently a volunteer guide).
The Seafood Watch program was officially launched as part of the Aquarium’s 15th Anniversary Celebration on October 20, 1999.
The premise was that it was possible to have a healthy ocean and keep seafood in our diets; and that conservation of ocean wildlife was possible by purchasing and serving seafood only from sustainable, well-managed fisheries and farms.
The new program appeared on the Aquarium’s redesigned website, and the now-famous wallet-sized cards highlighted green Best Choices, yellow Good Alternatives (back then referred to as, “Potential Problems”), and red Avoid seafood sources. In all, 38 species were listed—compared to more than 2,200 today!
Gaining Influence
It didn’t take long for the program to achieve national recognition. On November 9, 1999, William Broad of the New York Times wrote an article titled “Conservationists Write a Menu to Save Fish.” The feature highlighted the new program and included quotes from Lisin.
In what would become a major initiative, the Aquarium allied with two major commercial partners for National Seafood Month in October 2000, with a goal of raising consumer awareness about seafood buying decisions. Whole Foods markets in Northern California and Washington distributed Seafood Watch guides and posted signs in seafood display cases. Bon Appétit Management Co., a foodservice company, adopted Seafood Watch guidelines for all of its corporate and institutional menus. Other major partners would join in the coming years, including Compass Group (parent company of Bon Appétit); Aramark, a facilities management and food service company; and Red Lobster, the world’s largest seafood restaurant chain and restaurant buyer of seafood.
To help oversee the program’s exponential growth, Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly, then working at the New England Aquarium, was hired in 2001 as the first Seafood Watch Program Manager. (She still oversees the 25-person organization and its $8 million annual budget today, as Vice President of Global Ocean Initiatives.) One of her initial tasks was to help develop regional pocket guides, featuring seafood common in different parts of the U.S. Working with regional partners (aquariums, fishing communities, and governing organizations), a West Coast Pocket Guide was the first to be developed.
Cooking for Solutions Debuts
An outgrowth of Seafood Watch, “Cooking for Solutions: Celebrity Chefs Celebrate Sustainable Cuisine” was launched in May 2002. It was a celebration of information, fine dining, and food-related activities, held at the Aquarium. Famous chefs were invited to demonstrate that sustainable cooking and dining can be elegant and delicious, and that individual seafood buying decisions can help assure a future with a healthy ocean. The inaugural program honored renowned chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California. Cooking for Solutions would eventually enjoy a star-studded, 12-year run. It also included a “Sustainable Foods Institute,” convening culinarians, food producers, thought leaders and journalists who covered food and the environment for a two-day exploration of developments that were transforming food systems to support healthy soils and oceans.
As an outgrowth of Cooking for Solutions, a group of more than 60 top chefs and culinary educators around the country was eventually formed, called the Blue Ribbon Task Force, to help shape the Seafood Watch program and influence the industry, suppliers, restaurants, and media to motivate responsible seafood choices. It included such prominent chefs and culinarians as Rick Moonen, Susan Feniger, Rick Bayless, Virginia Willis, Sam Talbot and Barton Seaver.
Growth Comes Quickly
By 2003, over a million printed guides had been distributed, and Seafood Watch could claim to be the foremost resource for consumers seeking to choose seafood that is fished or farmed in ways that support healthy oceans. That number grew to five million by 2004.
To help spread the sustainability message to millions of Aquarium guests, the renovated Ocean’s Edge wing, finished in 2005, included a live, interactive “Real Cost Café” where visitors could learn how to order a seafood meal that pleased the palate and protected ocean wildlife. The humorous exhibit includes real actors and mock seafood “purchases.” Check out our online version if you want to give it a try.
In 2006, local restaurants, from Big Sur to Half Moon Bay, pledged to adhere to Seafood Watch standards and distribute cards. Today there are hundreds of these business partners spanning the country.
Brushes with Fame
Remember Mumble, the lovable dancing penguin in the Academy Award-winning movie, Happy Feet? Throughout the film, launched in 2007, Mumble and his friends face environmental challenges like pollution and depleted fisheries. To help highlight these issues, the DVD release of the animated film is packaged with a Seafood Watch consumer guide and includes a video short titled “Where did all the fish go?” about how individual seafood choices can help penguins and other ocean wildlife. More than 9 million guides were distributed as a result of the partnership with Warner Bros.
Other public relations coups have occurred through Seafood Watch history. In 2012, comedian Ellen DeGeneres mentioned Seafood Watch on her Emmy-Award-winning show, highlighting the importance of choosing sustainable seafood to an audience of millions. Over the years, Seafood Watch would also be prominent on shows such as Top Chef, Good Morning America, and Martha Stewart. On numerous occasions, Julie Packard and Seafood Watch were ranked among the Top 50 most powerful people in food in America by the influential website, “The Daily Meal.” In doing so, she joined a list that includes Michele Obama, Jimmy Fallon, Alice Waters, and the heads of Monsanto, PepsiCo, Yelp and McDonalds – individuals shaping the country’s food systems.
Seafood Watch Goes High Tech
The Aquarium and Seafood Watch have always been at the forefront of technological developments. In 2009, Seafood Watch launched a new application for the iPhone and iPod touch, bringing up-to-date seafood recommendations to people’s fingertips. Thousands of users downloaded the app in the first few days, and millions would do so in the years to come.
In 2007 Seafood Watch gained a presence on Facebook and Twitter, and soon added Instagram, YouTube, and a Tumblr blog. It has more than 100,000 followers across these platforms today. In 2014, the Aquarium participated in a U.S. State Department “Fishackathon,” a chance for computer coder teams, working simultaneously across more than 40 cities internationally, to use their tech skills to tackle seafood challenges selected by the State Department. The hope: that the ideas developed would support sustainable small-scale fisheries in the developing world. The Aquarium provided meals and sleeping space in its exhibit galleries for two nights as Fishackathon participants coded with the Aquarium’s living exhibits as inspiration. The best solutions were eligible for prizes.
Before long Seafood Watch would launch other online tools, including the Seafood Slavery Risk Tool, which helped businesses assess the potential risk of forced labor, human trafficking, and hazardous child labor in fisheries. Businesses use the tool to identify seafood sourced from fisheries that have these issues, and take steps to address them.
Seafood Watch also developed the Seafood Carbon Emissions Tool, a website that allows users to see the carbon footprint of the seafood, wild or farmed, that they purchase and compare it to land-based protein sources. It includes estimates for over 150 combinations of species and gear as well as a transportation calculator. The Carbon Tool also serves as a data collection portal, growing to include more species and information over time.
Driving Improvements Internationally
Ninety percent of the seafood consumed in the United States is imported. That means Seafood Watch assesses fisheries and aquaculture productions from around the world. It also menas the US market has a lot of leverage in driving change in the seafood industry internationally.
To help drive change globally, Seafood Watch is now working with major seafood producer Minh Phu to help bring 20,000 small-scale shrimp farms in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta to a green Best Choice rating by 2025.This commitment is a collaboration between the private sector and non-governmental organizations, all working together to address challenges for the small-scale farming families who make up most of the region’s shrimp production.
Seafood Watch also joined forces with Thai Union Group PCL, one of the world’s largest seafood producers, and its Chicken of the Sea brand to launch SeaChange IGNITE — an initiative to advance and improve sustainability throughout Thai Union’s supply chain to focus on improvements in Southeast Asia and other key seafood-producing regions.
In Latin America, the Seafood Watch team is focusing their energy in Chile, who is one of the largest producers of farmed salmon. Antibiotic use is a major issue within the region and the Seafood Watch team is working with the salmon producers to tackle the problem. The goal is to reduce their antibiotic use by 50% by 2025 as pathway to achieving a yellow Good Alternative rating.
Advising Governments & World Leaders
In 2016, Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hosted the third annual Our Ocean Conference in Washington, D.C. Leaders from around the globe, representing government, industry, nonprofit organizations and emerging young voices, gathered at the State Department for this significant ocean conservation event. On this world stage, Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly presented on Seafood Watch’s leadership role in the global sustainable seafood movement.
In 2017, the United Nations hosted it’s first World Ocean Conference in New York City–a global gathering focused on Sustainable Development Goal 14: protecting life below water—and Seafood Watch is represented. Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly advocates for policies to reduce single-use plastic, new commitments that promote sustainable international fisheries, and concerted action to tackle ocean acidification and other impacts of climate change.
A couple months later, Seafood Watch, along with other global leaders, including John Kerry, gather at the Our Ocean conference in Malta, pledging to protect the health of the global ocean. The conference lead to governments, nonprofits, and businesses around the world pledging more than $8 billion to support sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, address the ocean impacts of climate change, and stem the flow of plastic pollution from land to sea.
A year later we already saw results. At the 2018 Our Ocean conference in Bali, Aquarium Executive Director Julie Packard and Secretary Kerry announced two major commitments to advance comprehensive solutions and improve government policies to support sustainable seafood development in Southeast Asia.
In 2019, Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly testified to the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Waters, Oceans and Wildlife. She provided insight into the seafood markets and made policy recommendations to advance the sustainability of global fisheries.
October 20, 2019: Seafood Watch celebrates 20 years of supporting a healthy ocean!
Today, there’s plenty to celebrate:
- 2.3 million downloads of the Seafood Watch app
- 61 million consumer guides distributed, with 2.5 million added annually
- 340 business partners in 13,000 locations, including individual restaurants throughout the country and major buyers such as Aramark, Bon Appétit, Compass Group, Mars Petcare, Disney, Whole Foods, and Red Lobster.
- 25 full time staff
- 200-plus Conservation Partners in nine countries across 4 continents
- 450-plus chefs and members of the culinary community engaged in making better food and sustainable seafood the dining norm
- 122,000 total followers across social media platforms
We couldn’t have done it without your encouragement, support and participation. Here’s to 20 more years!