A U.S. dock-to-restaurant seafood service has quickly grown since its inception in 2008 to serve more than 1,000 restaurants nationwide. Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Sea to Table works with a number of small fisheries across the United States to ship their catch directly to chef partners, including restaurants and campus foodservice operations, such as Yale University and the University of California. Sea to Table also provides seafood for home meal delivery services, such as Plated.
SeafoodSource recently caught up with Sea to Table’s Michael Dimin to talk about the growth of Sea to Table and what is next for the operation.
Blank: Why do chefs and foodservice buyers want to work with Sea to Table?
Dimin: People want to connect locally with fish that is landing in their region, but they also want to be able to take advantage of fish landing in other regions. One of our purposes is to develop a better marketplace for our fishermen and docks, and try to get them a better price. Because we are able to connect directly from the point of capture to the point of consumption, we cut out the [middle] link, and we are able to deliver it at a competitive price. We will only deal with fish that we are comfortable that they are being harvested from sustainable fisheries.
Blank: How is the fish packed and shipped directly to restaurants and other buyers?
Dimin: All of our fresh product goes in packs directly from the dock, and we ship via third party, mostly FedEx and UPS. We work with a cut house at the dock that is able to store our packaging, communicate the business and take our orders. The fish always goes out the same day.
Blank: How have your sales grown since you and your father, Sean Dimin, formed the company?
Dimin: We’ve grown double digits every year. Our proposition isn’t that we are cheaper than everybody. We allow chefs to have a transparent connection; we trace every fish that lands, allowing them to have a completely traceable, high-quality product. Getting them fish overnight becomes an automatically better product, and we are able to do it on a cost-competitive basis.
Blank: Are foodservice buyers primarily interested in popular seafood species or lesser-known seafood?
Dimin: We are trying to promote what we call “underloved” species, which creates more value for the fishermen. Sometimes the things that are most abundant don’t have the market presence. We tell them [buyers] everything that is landing at all of our docks and try to create a market for it. We promote what our fishermen are catching.
