Transforming the Regional Seafood Economy — and Our Tastes
It’s a typical summer afternoon at the Chatham Fish Pier. Colorful boats steam into Aunt Lydia’s Cove to unload the day’s catch, while seals and seagulls jockey for the chance to snag a stray fish. Tourists take selfies and toss the scavengers French fries from the observation deck. Refrigerated trucks are already waiting to bring the load to distribution and processing centers in Boston.
Some of the fish coming through Chatham Pier are the lobsters, haddock, or striped bass that we’ve come to expect in restaurants and fish markets. But others are carrying more exotic species like scup, skate, and dogfish. You probably won’t see these fish on a local menu — but if the Chatham Harvester’s Cooperative has anything to do with it, that’s about to change.
But wait, isn’t this Cape Cod? We should be eating cod, right? And of course, anything that’s landed in Chatham must go straight to local restaurants and markets, so it’s as fresh as possible.
Reality check. The fish that gave this peninsula its European name is in serious decline. New England fishermen are forced to venture farther and farther offshore in search of high-value fish like swordfish and tuna, for less and less return. Meanwhile, they’re throwing back the skate and scup in their nets and selling the dogfish to overseas markets. Restaurants and markets sell imported cod and salmon because that’s what people have come to expect, and fish goes through major distribution hubs rather than the market down the street — a catch 22 that benefits neither fishermen nor consumers’ pocketbooks.
That’s why, in 2016, fishermen Doug Feeney, Luther Bates and David Gelfman started the Chatham Harvesters Cooperative. By fishing and creating markets for “under-utilized” local seafood, the group hopes to transform the regional seafood economy. They say this will restore autonomy to Chatham fishermen, and by extension, to consumers, who care about the impact of what they eat on the local economy and ecosystem.
“Our idea is to have a system where a small group of fishermen can provide more seafood on a more local level. If you know where your fish is from, your fishmonger, and your fishermen, it builds a strong sustaining community,” says Shareen Davis, a fishing industry consultant who works with the Cooperative. “If people come together with core values of sustainability of the community and the ocean, it can lead to a better quality of life for people, and the quality of what’s being brought to shore.”
The Cooperative’s strategy thus far is to supply a high-volume market (think schools, hospitals and prisons) with “value-added” products made from dogfish. Working with the fish distributor Red’s Best under a USDA grant, the group developed the Noah Burger (named for Feeney’s son), spicy and breaded fish “nuggets” and a beer-battered filet that’s perfect for fish n’ chips. Within the last few years, the Cooperative’s products have landed in 17 campus cafeterias — including the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Harvard University — which lure diners to try something new and sustainable with attractive displays. Most importantly to Feeney, hundreds of students in Boston and Springfield-area schools also get to enjoy fish through the Cooperative’s Sea-to-School Program.
Though these students might not know it, their fish nuggets represent a radical change from the status quo in the fishing industry. The Cooperative’s fair-trade pricing allows fishermen to focus on high-value, low-volume fishing, which has far less impact on the marine ecosystem and keeps revenue in the regional economy.
Though dogfish and skate wings may be unfamiliar on the menu, the Cooperative’s members claim that small shifts in our diet can help turn the tide in the nation’s fishing industry.
“Nationally, we export 90% of our fish and import 91% of the seafood we eat,” says Feeney, citing figures made infamous in Paul Greenberg’s book American Catch. “That’s so wrong, on so many levels. We have starving people in our own nation. We have a protein source, right here.”
Feeney, a former pro snowboarder and U.S. Airborne Ranger, has witnessed this imbalance in action since he became a fisherman in the late 90s, landing tens of thousands of pounds of cod, haddock and pollack at the Chatham Fish Pier.
“I was part of decimating those fish. I threw thousands of pounds of fish overboard because [we exceeded] our catch share,” Feeney recalls. “It made me sick to my stomach.” So, in the early 2000s while many of the fishermen Feeney knew were getting out of the business, he decided to buy his own boat and focus his efforts on dogfish and skate. At first he long-lined, until he turned to a low-bycatch method of using gillnets (the trick is to pull them up every 45 minutes, Feeney says). Fishermen target female dogfish, which are bigger than males, but Feeney is aware that too much pressure could severely impact the fishery.
Once hailed as the most widely abundant shark species in the world, Atlantic spiny dogfish stocks were in serious decline by the 1980s. NOAA Fisheries and two regional management councils found that the small sharks were overfished and placed strict catch limits on the species in 1998. But just 12 years later, dogfish stocks were declared by fisheries managers to be rebuilt. In 2017, commercial landings of spiny dogfish were valued at more than $3.3 million, according to NOAA Fisheries. In 2019, about eight million pounds of dogfish were exchanged on the Chatham Fish Pier, and Cooperative fishermen sold 1.8 million pounds of that amount.
This turnaround in the local dogfish market is largely due to the Cooperative’s efforts. With the advent of the USDA program, the Cooperative was able to negotiate a higher price from buyers, up from 9 cents to an average of 22 cents a pound. Feeney and other Chatham fishermen could make a decent living, hauling in up to 6000 pounds of dogfish a day. But it started to bother Feeney that basically all his catch ended up as fish and chips in the United Kingdom.
Tempting as the Cooperative’s ready-to-eat dogfish products may be, Americans’ fascination with sharks doesn’t extend to the dinner plate. Dogfish, so named for the way they hunt in packs, have long been considered “trash fish.” They are most often used for their parts, rather than as food. Fins go to China for the controversial shark fin soup; the squalene in their livers ends up in cosmetics; and the cartilage is used in supplements.
As for food, the U.S. market isn’t yet biting on the scale the fishermen need to go big — and stay home. Part of the problem, Feeney says, is cost. Currently, dogfish “off the knife” from the processor is $1.87 per pound. Additional costs come into play with freezing, storage, and shipment. Most institutional buyers need a price point at $1.50 per pound or less, says Feeney. Ironically, that low cost actually makes dogfish unattractive to fishmongers who would prefer to sell a more expensive fresh fish, he adds.
“We have this phenomenon where we have a product that’s inexpensive until you process it. Then it’s either too expensive or too cheap,” he says. “But there’s always demand from Europe.”
The Cooperative’s 10-pound boxes of fish nuggets and filets are available through the distributor Sysco, but Feeney has found that locavore-oriented restaurants don’t have accounts there. The Cooperative is making in-roads to local plates, however, with personal appeals to restaurant owners and giving talks at universities and schools. Restaurants such as the Chatham Pier Fish Market and The Corner Store in Chatham and Orleans now feature “Cape shark,” in season.
Feeney says the key to the Cooperative’s success is encouraging American consumers to be more adventurous in their choices and create demand for under-utilized species.
“We need to start eating with the ocean. We need to eat what it provides us, and not keep whaling on the cod or pollack,” Feeney says.
The Cooperative’s next goal is to gain control of fish processing, a crucial step in achieving autonomy over prices. According to Feeney, only three processors in the country will accept dogfish, including two companies in New Bedford. While this arrangement works for the time being, Feeney’s ultimate dream is to set up a small processor and test kitchen on the Cape specializing in under-utilized species.
“That’s when we can really start making tracks,” Feeney says. “It would bring in a ton of jobs. More fishermen would be able to get into the business. And it would get kids eating fish again.”
