Spotlight On a Cannery Trying to Revive A Dormant Fishing Tradition

In the summertime of 2010, the 135-year-old Stinson’s sardine cannery in Prospect Harbor, Maine shuttered. “It was in all probability for good motive,” says Chris Sherman, CEO of Island Creek Oysters, an aquaculture enterprise based mostly in Duxbury, Massachusetts. The plant was now not economically viable as a consequence of federal restrictions on herring catch. Stinson’s was one of many final remaining seafood canneries in Maine—and the final sardine cannery in the USA—marking the top of the nation’s 120-year-long sardine canning custom. Whereas decreasing herring quota is meant to forestall overfishing, in coastal villages equivalent to Prospect Harbor, such measures can have a devastating impact on the native economic system: Canneries like Stinson’s not solely present jobs but in addition function a crucial hyperlink that ensures regular, year-round enterprise for fishermen.

Sherman is not any stranger himself to the environmental and financial challenges of operating an aquaculture enterprise. Island Creek is a vertically built-in oyster operation, which means it each farms and distributes its personal oysters. However he’s nonetheless intent on turning the tides of the canning business. In July, Sherman introduced the launch of his newest enterprise, the Island Creek Cannery, the primary ever single-origin canning facility of its variety within the US.

Lengthy earlier than the pandemic despatched American appetites seaward, stoking our interest in convenient, high-end canned fish, Island Creek—a primarily recent seafood enterprise—had its eye on the tin. “We’ve at all times been excited by democratizing oysters and shellfish normally,” says Sherman. In 2016, Island Creek opened The Portland Oyster Store—the corporate’s first full-service restaurant—in downtown Portland, Maine. However the uncooked bar-only idea was operating lean, and Sherman rapidly realized he wanted one other meals choice to bulk out the menu that wouldn’t require a setup to make sizzling meals. Taking cues from already-established tin-centric eating places equivalent to NYC’s Maiden Lane and Boston’s haley.henry, Sherman opted for serving conservas, a culinary delicacy common throughout the Mediterranean, whereby seafood is preserved in brines, olive oils, and different flavorful sauces. Conservas retailer indefinitely and require little back-of-house labor, an operational boon. However would the market discover them satisfying? “I used to be satisfied at that time that it was simply not going to work, however individuals actually responded to [the conservas],” says Sherman. “That gave us a reasonably good indicator that this factor has some legs.”

To fulfill the newfound buyer demand for tinned fish, Island Creek started importing, distributing, and co-branding its personal line of conservas for Conservas Mariscadora, a collective of impartial feminine shellfish harvesters—or mariscadoras—in Galicia, Spain who harvest totally traceable seafood from the waters of the Cantabrian Sea. Whereas comparatively new to the US market, in Spain, conservas are ubiquitous. “The Spanish eat a ton of seafood,” says Sherman, who started touring the nation researching sustainable fish farms on an Eisenhower Fellowship in 2018. “After we eat french fries, they’re consuming shellfish.” Thus, canning turned a mandatory innovation, entrenching itself into Spanish tradition. Sherman observed this most starkly whereas purchasing at El Corte Inglés, the place tin after tin of conservas stocked 4 full aisles’ value of grocery retailer cabinets. “The octopus part was greater than the soup part at most American grocery shops,” says Sherman.

That’s when issues started to gel for Sherman. For Island Creek, an organization accustomed to the challenges of producing a seasonal product, packing seafood in tins offered a shiny resolution. By canning stateside, they might pack their seasonal product at peak high quality whereas creating stock that may very well be bought year-round at worth. Moreover, the rising recognition of conservas within the US meant the demand for high-quality fish aligned with the corporate’s personal requirements.

Positioned within the historic fishing group of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the Island Creek Oyster Cannery is a small operation with large ambitions. Mixing Island Creek Oysters’ already established model of sustainable aquaculture with the American market’s newfound starvation for high-quality, shelf-stable seafood, Island Creek is resurrecting a dormant US custom that’s existed for the reason that 1800s—albeit repurposing it with Mediterranean beliefs to fulfill the wants of the modern market.

Whereas Island Creek has constructed a complete enterprise out of recent oysters, it hasn’t but canned any. “Oyster provide has been fairly tight,” says Sherman, which drives the costs up. “They’re additionally probably the most troublesome shellfish to can nicely.” As a substitute, the corporate is targeted on farming clams, in addition to sourcing from different New England seafood producers it’s met and vetted, equivalent to Cherrystone Aqua-Farms in Virginia. “We’re undoubtedly branching out, however we’re attempting to maintain the whole lot single-origin, single-producer, and we’re attempting to maintain the whole lot working with accountable harvesters and farmers that meet our requirements,” says Sherman. The time period “single-origin” is used broadly throughout the specialty meals and beverage house (assume chocolate, espresso, and whiskey) and refers to meals from a selected farm, location, or supply. The identical is true in aquaculture. It’s a powerful marker of fish and seafood traceability—and thus, high quality.

Having a cannery within the US that sources seafood solely from American shores presents a major alternative for American seafood producers. Island Creek is assured that this enterprise will assist coastal communities throughout the USA by offering a steady, year-round provide of seafood. This regular stock will profit the quite a few seafood-related companies which are a significant a part of the East Coast’s fishing economic system.

“Since we’ve publicized the cannery, I’ve had half the medium- to small-scale seafood producers within the Northeast attain out to me about dealing with their product,” says Sherman. “We simply now want to attach the dots and make the demand there as nicely. I believe we’re doing that, nevertheless it’s brick by brick.” To spice up the lowbrow fame of canned fish that also dominates a lot of the US market, Island Creek is selecting to can in European format tins—typically wider and shallower than a typical tuna or cat meals tin—which he hopes will telegraph the standard of the product and justify the premium worth level.

With little in the way in which of custom in the USA, the tinned fish market continues to be discovering its sea legs; Sherman notes there may be “some chaos available in the market” with tinned fish costs ranging wherever from $4 to $30, however the firm is making strides in the direction of its aim of democratizing shellfish. “I didn’t assume we’d promote to 800 cooks across the nation each week…however truthfully, we promote a ton of tin fish to cooks and eating places that aren’t tinned fish eating places. They’re utilizing them as an ingredient in a pasta dish, or on rice. And so they’re utilizing it as a result of they don’t have the labor and the shucking and the steaming and the sauce making,” says Sherman. He’s assured that different canneries like his will comply with go well with, particularly alongside the East Coast the place fish shares and shellfish farms are ample.

Nevertheless, Sherman is candid concerning the challenges that lie forward: In international locations equivalent to Spain and Portugal, the place most canneries are run by generations of households, labor prices are a fraction of these in the USA. Nonetheless, canning has lengthy been, and continues to be, a revolutionary course of with a major affect on making certain sustainable aquaculture practices and preserving native fishing communities that depend on canning through the low season. It additionally advantages customers, who can get pleasure from high-quality seafood at a extra cheap worth level than recent seafood. Says Sherman, “We’re blazing the path—for higher or worse.”