Norah Eddy is co-founder of Salty Girl Seafood, a company dedicated to educating consumers about their seafood. Salty Girl markets and sells pre-seasoned, sustainable seafood products that give consumers the complete story of the seafood they’re eating, traceability information including how, when and where a fish was caught.
SeafoodSource: How do your products reflect consumers' changing needs and desires when it comes to seafood?
Eddy: We are in this exciting time when consumers are recognizing their power to influence sourcing practices and quality standards. Natural is the fastest growing category in food. Organic, healthy, gluten free, non-GMO are attributes not just for the upper class anymore, and consumers are seeking brands with which to align their own values, which help them make healthy, informed decisions. And that is exactly the role that Salty Girl plays.
SeafoodSource: You first launched as a wholesale operation and later moved to retail in September 2015. Why the shift?
Eddy: We were working to connect chefs and fishermen more closely, because we saw a huge opportunity to have an impact in doing so. That’s because 70 percent of seafood sold in the U.S. is through restaurants. As we grew, people kept asking us, “Where can we buy Salty Girl?” We had developed a strong following of people who were looking for sustainable seafood with a story. They loved the brand. The more we studied the space the more we realized there was a void in the market for a consumer who wants healthy, sustainably sourced, traceable seafood. So we took Salty Girl to retail and haven’t looked back!
SeafoodSource: What's been consumers' responses to your efforts to educate them about traceability of product?
Eddy: Our consumers love the traceability component of our line. One of the first questions people ask us when they are about to try our fish is, “Where did it come from?” It’s a great feeling to be able to tell them exactly where their fish came from, and the story behind it. So much of the mission of Salty Girl revolves around education—about seafood, the waters where it is harvested and the communities that depend on the resource. Consumers have been very responsive to the connectivity to their food.
The product certainly resonates with the millennial demographic, a group that is focused on health, sustainability, and positive contribution. We also have young families who stock up for easy, healthy weeknight meals, and empty-nesters who keep our fish on hand.
SeafoodSource: What has been your biggest business challenge thus far at Salty Girl? How did you manage it and what did you learn from that experience?
Eddy: Our biggest challenge is keeping up with our growth as a small team with limited resources. So much of our success is attributable to the work ethic and positive attitude of everyone at Salty Girl. We are all motivated to drive change in the seafood industry, which unites all of our efforts even on the hard days. Communication is absolutely key—it’s an area where we are constantly improving to make our operations more efficient.
SeafoodSource: How has your company grown since inception? What are your growth plans moving forward and what kind of obstacles will you need to surmount before you can reach those goals?
Eddy: Salty Girl has grown significantly since we launched our retail line of sustainable, traceable seafood last September. We are currently sold throughout the West Coast, we landed Whole Foods Market and are rolling out to the East Coast mid-summer. Next steps will be a nationwide rollout, which will require large-scale distribution, and increased working capital.
SeafoodSource: What are the top one or two issues facing the industry as it pertains to your business, and what are some of the solutions you would offer to address those issues?
Eddy: Many of global our fisheries are doing well. The developed world has done a fairly good job at managing healthy fish stocks and research suggests stocks around the world have rebounded due to 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 assessment. 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.
We started Salty Girl to be a part of innovative solutions in small-scale fisheries, to provide market-based incentives and truly drive sustainability, and we can’t get there fast enough. We are constantly seeking out strategic partners within the supply chain whose mission aligns with ours, and with whom we can work to reach these fisheries that need innovation.
SeafoodSource: Given the opportunity to address a room filled with seafood industry leaders such as yourself, what is the one nugget of wisdom you would offer them as your closing remark?
Eddy: We have a huge opportunity, as an industry, to create lasting change in our oceans and for our fisheries. The amount of media attention on the seafood industry over the last several years has sparked a fire for the demand for sustainable seafood, environmentally friendly practices and corporate responsibility. Innovating our current businesses and the industry as a whole to match consumer demand is inevitable. Key partnerships and collaboration can progress this at a rapid rate if 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 protein source in the world. And that would be a win for all of us.
