Fed by Blue, an international campaign to promote responsibly produced blue foods, is working to secure funding for a second season of its documentary series “Hope in the Water” after the first season saw widespread media coverage – and increased seafood sales for retail partners.
The first season, a three-part documentary series which aired on U.S. public television channel PBS and is still available for streaming, highlighted different innovations on the water that both help provide food and enhance sustainability or preserve areas of the sea. The program was produced by Emmy Award- and James Beard award-winning Andrew Zimmern’s production company Intuitive Content in collaboration with multi-award-winning American television writer and producer David Kelley, garnering over 7 million views and becoming the most successful multi-platform launch in PBS’s history.
Fed by Blue Co-Founder and Executive Director Jennifer Bushman told SeafoodSource the mission of Fed by Blue has been to create an “agnostic” nonprofit funded outside the seafood industry that could build different kinds of impact campaigns about responsibly sourced foods from the water with stories just like those featured in “Hope in the Water.”
"It may seem like a vast undertaking, but that was the goal," Bushman said. "We hadn't seen campaigns that highlight the importance of this food system and its impactful work. There are powerful, hopeful stories with the potential to drive education and change in consumptive behavior in the market place. We wanted the chance to test the theory. ‘Hope in the Water’ represented one part of that.”
“Hope in the Water” was meant highlight the positive work of innovators using blue food systems as a means of both producing a product and enhancing the sustainability of the areas they are producing in.
“While we are only at the starting line, the success of the series and the impact campaign suggests that we can achieve that,” Bushman said.
"Hope in the Water" was directly viewed by more than 7 million people, had nine separate premiers with more than 2,000 attendees – and more than 20 screenings after that – partnered with 35 different PBS stations, and was featured across more than 145 news stories in publications like the New York Times, People Magazine, Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.
Fed by Blue also created teaching programs that were sent to thousands of schools in the U.S., featuring five free lesson plans designed for grades six through 12.
“We’re waiting for grant approval to do grants for teachers that are going to build programs in their school districts so that they can teach other teachers and utilize the toolkits that have already been produced,” Bushman said.
Getting to that point wasn’t easy.
Bushman said working with PBS means the program had to go through extremely stringent vetting to ensure there was no influence related to the seafood industry. This vetting was specific to the funding, the science, and the authenticity of the stories, according to Bushman, who said the process and auditing took over a year to complete before PBS would sign a distribution contract.
"I emphasize this point because there’s a misunderstanding," Bushman said. "Having experience in the field doesn’t mean the industry influenced the storytelling in the series or the activities of the impact campaign. That independence was crucial to its success."
All of the underwriting on the program came through people or organizations involved in ocean advocacy, but Bushman said PBS’s requirements on their influence are extremely strict and heavily audited.
"It’s important to note that funders have no influence on the stories told in the series," Bushman said. "They don’t have final say, cannot have an advisory role with Fed by Blue, or any sway over our work, regardless of their financial support."
Narrowing down the program to the stories it eventually told was also a lengthy process. Bushman said they got over 1,200 submissions after putting out a call for pitches, and then Intuitive Content and Fed by Blue spent hundreds of hours interviewing over 350 different people to narrow things down to the nine stories featured across the three episodes of "Hope in the Water."
Bushman said that all of that work has ultimately paid off with the widespread viewing of the program, and it has also had tangible, direct results for companies looking to sell more seafood.
At first, Fed by Blue was looking to partner with retailers and use its "Hope on the Water" materials to help them promote retailers.
“The engagement toolkit was sent out to at least 130 retailers,” Bushman said.
That toolkit would allow retailers to do a campaign promoting PBS that uses the likeness of Martha Stewart, who is featured in the program, and other celebrities to help promote seafood.
"A campaign might say, 'Promote your responsibly raised scallops, share the story behind them, and for more, visit PBS’s Hope in the Water,'” Bushman said.
In doing so, Bushman explained, PBS would give permission to use the content from the scallop story in Episode 2, which featured Martha Stewart.
The toolkit also has images for public use, key art and posters, logos, social media promotional assets, and more that retailers could use for free so long as they followed guidelines. Despite wide access to hundreds of free resources, retailers largely passed on using the campaign.
“No one took us up on doing a campaign. We were so surprised,” Bushman said.
Bushman said the main complaint was that the retailers weren’t carrying the specific products mentioned in "Hope in the Water," so they said they didn’t have anything to promote.
“Our thesis was, 'Yes, you do because the product is related enough that you can story tell around it,'" Bushman said. “No one bought that.”
Bushman said Fed by Blue still believed in its thesis and eventually secured a grant to buy the space to go into select retailers and actually test it out on their own.
One of those campaigns was conducted in Portland, Oregon, to great success.
"What was amazing is that Daisy Berg at New Seasons featured our family-owned shrimp farmer story during National Seafood Month, connecting it to the shrimp producer she carries," Bushman said. "Sales increased by 78 percent."
Another promotion, with Good Eggs in the San Francisco area, also brought up sales in the general seafood category by 30 percent. A campaign with Pacific Catch Restaurant Group, coinciding with when the series was airing, also lifted sales 17 percent.
“What we know going forward is that we’ll need to find grant money in order to be able to do these types of campaigns,” Bushman said. "Documentaries and docuseries alone can't shift consumer behavior. These campaigns are essential. Despite the uproar over ‘Seaspiracy’ and ‘Don’t Look Up,’ recent studies show they had no impact on consumer behavior. People get upset, but it doesn’t lead to change."
Now that Fed by Blue has proven its thesis on changing consumptive behavior through a combination of an anchor docuseries and promotional campaigns, it is looking to follow up with a second season.
“We have approval from PBS for season two, and we’re trying to work on funding right now,” Bushman said.
The series has an 11-month shoot schedule, and the goal is to have it air in 2026; Fed by Blue is working on closing a funding gap to make it happen.
There is more to come. In addition to new retail campaigns, Fed by Blue is also launching a podcast on Heritage Radio Network in May and releasing a cookbook, “Hope in the Water: The Blue Food Cookbook,” in October. Written by Andrew Zimmern and Barton Seaver, it will feature sustainable seafood recipes and a National Seafood Month tour, published by Harper Collins Harvest."
"We’re just getting started, still learning, and it truly took a village," Bushman said.
