The Top 25: Seafood Sustainability & Conservation

Fortune Fish & Gourmet

Commitments aren’t made lightly by Bensenville, Illinois-based company Fortune Fish & Gourmet, especially in terms of sustainability, transparency, and community.

The supplier has been guided by many principles and partnerships in its quest to source and sell environmentally- and socially-responsible seafood from the moment of its founding in 2001 by Sean O'Scannlain.

Fortune is a founding member of Sea Pact, a collaborative association of 10 leading American and Canadian seafood companies seeking to make the industry a more sustainable and eco-friendly one, and has made pledges to the National Fisheries Institute’s Better Seafood Board, which is dedicated to stamping out economic fraud in the industry. Additionally, the company has implemented its Fortune Cares commitment, regularly supporting community organizations such as the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chefs Collaborative, the American Red Cross, No Kid Hungry, SeaShare, and more.

As a member of Stronger America Through Seafood, a trade group supporting domestic aquaculture efforts in the U.S., Fortune has sought to broaden business opportunities for domestic communities – something that has taken on new meaning in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

“Now is the time to embrace new opportunities for American workers and American consumers,” O'Scannlain said in May 2020, following the issuing of U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on seafood on 7 April. “The U.S. seafood community has long understood the importance of supplementing wild-capture fisheries with sustainably farm-raised seafood. We simply cannot meet the rising global demand for healthful animal protein without farming fish. We need both sustainable, local food and new job opportunities for newly unemployed Americans."

Below, Fortune Fish shares more with SeafoodSource about its most pressing sustainability directives in 2020, and the responsibility components core to its mission.

SeafoodSource: What kind of trends have informed Fortune Fish’s latest sustainability/conservation efforts?

Fortune Fish: The effects of the global pandemic and tariffs on the U.S. food system have changed the way the U.S. thinks about food security. The president himself passed the Executive Order on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth with an emphasis on facilitating more domestic aquaculture. Fortune Fish & Gourmet is actively participating through organizations such as Stronger America Through Seafood and Sea Pact to promote responsible domestic aquaculture and the environmental benefits of seafood as a healthy protein.

SeafoodSource: What key features serve to set Fortune Fish’s sustainable seafood offerings apart in the market?

Fortune Fish: Fortune Fish & Gourmet is Aquaculture Stewardship Council-, Best Aquaculture Practices-, and Marine Stewardship Council-certified. Our purchasing and sales staff are also well-versed in seafood sustainability, so we can better service our customers’ needs. Fortune has partnered with the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership and sits on several supplier roundtables to help fisheries and farms improve and increase the overall number of sustainable offerings available.

SeafoodSource: How does sustainability factor into your overall mission and strategy as a business?

Fortune Fish: Sustainability is at the forefront of Fortune’s overall mission and strategy. A healthy environment supplies us with nature’s finest seafood to procure for our customers. Social, economic, and environmental sustainability is top of mind from sourcing and processing, to labor and packaging. At Fortune, we strive to provide healthful, sustainable food for generations to come.

SeafoodSource: How does Fortune Fish approach sustainable, responsible development?

Fortune Fish: At Fortune Fish & Gourmet we invest in community philanthropically. The people of our communities and the environment that surrounds us are what sustain us and enable us to grow.  Fortune Fish & Gourmet believes in giving back and paying it forward. By cultivating lasting relationships with our suppliers, our customers, our employees and our neighbors we are building more than a business. We are building a community.

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