As a child in the 1980s, Rebecca Reuter remembers recycling as an up-and-coming trend first embraced by kids. Recycling became widespread after her generation encouraged their parents to do it too and continued the practice into adulthood.
She’s hoping Seafood 101, a government-industry partnership launched in Seattle this fall, will create the same type of generational shift: As kids learn about the health benefits of U.S. seafood consumption, they in turn will encourage their parents to eat more and grow up making seafood a greater part of their diets.
Unlike eco-labels and ratings systems, the goal of Seafood 101 is not to instruct consumers what to buy. It is to send the overall message that seafood is a healthy choice and, if they are concerned about the resource, to tell the story of the United States’ sustainable management of its fisheries.
“We really want to be educational, not exclusive,” said Reuter. “It’s about becoming more educated about what it is you’re buying.”
The idea grew from Reuter’s outreach work as a fisheries scientist/communications specialist for the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Center in Seattle. In 2011, she began working with the Seattle Times newspaper and its Newspapers in Education program, a national program that provides lesson plans tailored to content from newspapers, to create a series introducing the process of getting seafood from sea to market. After her second series, explaining the science behind sustainable seafood and a conversation with a colleague from Alaska Sea Grant, also an Alaska native, who wanted to get her kids to eat more seafood, she decided to take the program a step further.
Click here to read the full story that ran in the January issue of SeaFood Business >
