Norah Eddy and Laura Johnson are co-founders of Salty Girl Seafood, a sustainable seafood company founded in 2014 and based in Santa Barbara, California. The company develops traceable, chef-quality seafood products to promote sustainable fishing practices and ocean stewardship.
SeafoodSource: Your focus is on sourcing and selling sustainable, traceable seafood. How easy or difficult has it been to achieve this given the long-standing practices within the seafood industry?
Eddy & Johnson: From day one, our company has been committed to sustainable, traceable sourcing. We developed our business model and operations around making this possible. We work tirelessly to identify sustainable fisheries from which we want to source and ensure that all of the traceability information stays with the fish.
At Salty Girl, we are trying to disrupt the industry practices that have led to many of the challenges facing our oceans and the integrity of seafood supply chains. We have been able to develop really strong partnerships with other industry members who also hold sustainability and traceability as key components of their business practices. From fishermen to processors to retailers, we have been very successful in identifying entities that are as interested in disrupting the long-standing practices within the industry as we are.
SeafoodSource: As a woman-run company in a male-dominated industry, what obstacles or opportunities has this presented for your business?
Eddy & Johnson: Oftentimes I think people suspect that we have had to overcome incredible hurdles as women in seafood. We've certainly have had our fair share of hurdles, but we've also had a lot of huge opportunities as well. We are a women-owned and operated company; even our name is feminine. Being women has served as a great point of differentiation and enabled us to separate ourselves from others by representing change and new ideals. We've had great reception for bringing a fresh face to an old industry.
SeafoodSource: What do you see as the one or two top issues facing the seafood industry as a whole and what are some solutions you would offer to address those issues?
Eddy & Johnson: It’s important to consider that many of our fisheries are doing well. The developed world has done a fairly good job at managing healthy fish stocks. There’s a lot of strong science that suggests stocks around the world have rebounded because of effective management.
However, there is still a lot of work to be done in developing-world fisheries. A significant portion of the world's catch comes from fisheries without formal stock assessments. Small-scale fisheries in developing nations play critical roles in local economies and food stability, in addition to the impacts they have on the marine environment. The good news is there are a lot of really fantastic groups leading efforts all over the world to develop innovative approaches to manage these fisheries. It's important to remember that there is no "one size fits all" for managing small-scale fisheries. Scientists, NGOs and managers must work together with community and industry to find effective solutions for their fisheries. We started Salty Girl to be a part of innovative solutions in small-scale fisheries, to provide market based incentives and truly drive sustainability.
Another really key issue, of course, is slave labor in seafood supply chains. The United States’ recent ratification of the Port State Measures Agreement and the commitment of the Thai government and industry to improve human rights in seafood supply chains are really encouraging. The amount of coverage by the global press regarding this issue created an outrage among consumers. The power of the people to influence governments and industry to act is a really critical component for effecting positive change on the seafood industry in the future.
SeafoodSource: What do you consider to be your biggest business challenge thus far and what did you learn from that experience?
Eddy & Johnson: Our biggest challenge to date was changing from our original business model to our current model—pivoting. We started as a technology platform that connected chefs with fishermen to provide the highest quality boat-to-plate seafood. Operating this model, we identified a number of barriers to scaling and recognized an increasing opportunity to help solve consumer confusion around seafood. So we redirected our focus and developed a retail line.
Through that time, we learned a lot about the seafood industry, logistics and business. The biggest “a-ha” moment for us was when we started listening to where the demand was, and not trying to create it. We reviewed the data, followed our gut, and started solving the problems that people were asking to have solved. We haven't looked back since. Deciding to redirect our company was challenging, but we learned a lot about our strengths as a team and finding product-market fit.
SeafoodSource: Among your peers in the industry, who do you turn to for advice, to share ideas, to joke around or just to talk about issues you have in common?
Eddy & Johnson: We've been extremely lucky to have several mentors and colleagues who specialize in seafood and fisheries science. We've been fortunate to work with scientists such as Steve Gaines and Chris Costello over the last several years, who are on the cutting edge of fisheries science.
We feel very strongly that large-scale change comes only through collaboration, so we try to work with as many like-minded individuals and organizations as we can. We rely a lot on our colleagues at The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, NMFS, NOAA, among others, for advice and expertise working on the ground with fishermen and managers. We've also built great relationships with a number of groups that share a similar mission such as ThisFish, FishWise, Fish Choice, Seafood Watch and Future of Fish.
It’s also so much fun to connect with other seafood entrepreneurs. Nobody quite understands the roller coaster ride that is starting a business quite like other entrepreneurs.
SeafoodSource: Given the opportunity to address a room filled with seafood industry leaders, what is the one nugget of wisdom you would offer them as your closing remark?
Eddy & Johnson: The time for action is now. We have a huge opportunity, as an industry, to create lasting change in our oceans and our fisheries. The amount of media attention on the seafood industry over the past several years has sparked a fire for the demand for sustainable seafood, environmentally responsible practices and corporate social responsibility.
Innovating our current businesses and the industry as a whole to match consumer demand is inevitable. Key partnerships and collaboration can quickly accelerate this innovation, provided we agree on baseline targets for the industry to achieve. At a time when there is so much uncertainty with regard to the vitality of our environment and the future of fisheries, we have the opportunity to position seafood as the healthiest, most sustainable protein source in the world. And that would be a win for all of us.
