Another great choice for consumers seeking local sustainable seafood.
The Ecology Action Centre today announced a plan to bring trap caught shrimp to the marketplace.
Caught in traps much like lobster, the shrimp is usually larger than those caught by draggers and much more sustainable.
The shrimp is from Chedabucto Bay off Canso and will be sold through Fisherman’s Market on the Bedford Highway and will be on the menu of selected restaurants. Ask your server where your shrimp comes from.
Congratulations to Susanna Fuller, the EAC’s marine coordinator and a Slow Food member. The EAC people, including Anna Magera (another Slow Food member) and Sadie Beaton have been working very hard this year to tell consumers about local, high quality, sustainable seafood.
UPDATE: spoke to Fred Greene, the president of Fisherman’s Market…he said the plan for now is to provide the shrimp to restaurants to see what the chefs will do with them and judge what kind of public response there is..
The shrimp will not be available to the consumer at the moment although Pete’s Frootique is going to have some. The restaurants that will serve them include: Fid, Wooden Monkey, Chives and Jane’s on the Common in Halifax and Tempest in Wolfville.
Here is the full release:
For Immediate Release
October 26th, 2007
A New Sustainable Seafood Enters the Local Market:
Succulent Chedabucto Bay Trap Caught Shrimp
With the decline of the cod stocks, species like shrimp, crab, lobster and scallop have become the mainstays of Nova Scotia’s fisheries. While lobster and crab are caught with traps or pots, both shrimp and scallops are typically fished with gear that disturbs the sea floor.
Canso fisherman Mike Newell saw the potential for a new way of doing things. For almost a decade, fishermen in Chedabucto Bay off of Canso, NS have been fishing shrimp with traps. The result is a clean fishery – no bycatch, no damage to the ocean bottom – and a larger, better quality product. The trap fishery is also an inshore fishery, which means fishermen don’t have to go far and fuel costs are minimal.
“Trap caught shrimp are one of those products that can take advantage of the demand for local and sustainably caught food as well as providing a top notch product to a niche market.” says Ginny Boudreau, manager at GCIFA.
Until recently, these shrimp have not been separated from trawled shrimp in the processing plant. A new initiative through the Ecology Action Centre, the Guysborough County Inshore Fisherman’s Association and Fisherman’s Market aims to change that.
“This is an exciting opportunity to make the most of what we are doing here in the Canso area,” says local fisherman, Kevin Horne “It is a great opportunity for us to make the most of our fishery and benefit our community.”
“We have had chefs calling us and asking when the shrimp will be in”, says Sadie Beaton of the Ecology Action Centre’s Sustainable Seafood program. “Unlike meat or vegetables, the options for local and sustainable seafood are limited in Nova Scotia, partly because we do not celebrate our independent small scale fisheries in the same way we do farmers. This is starting to change.”
The shrimp will be available fresh frozen and unpeeled. This minimizes processing costs, and maximizes the quality of the product. A high quality product should mean that fishermen are rewarded accordingly, by price at the dock.
Although whole shrimp may seem strange to the average North American consumer, European seafood connoisseurs already know the delight of cooking the delectable crustaceans whole and peeling them as part of the dining experience. In Europe, people order bowls of sautéed prawns with their beer. We see an opportunity for Chedabucto Trap Caught shrimp to become a beloved finger food similar to mussels in Atlantic Canadian eating establishments.
Promotion of the shrimp locally is the first step, and as the market is assessed, the trap fishermen and Fishermen’s Market hope that this can be the start of a new way of doing business in the Canso area.
The first shipment of the trap caught shrimp will arrive in town this Monday, with local chef’s serving up a variety of dishes. Individuals can buy the shrimp from Fishermen’s Market on the Bedford Highway and from Home Grown Organics on Allan Street in Halifax.
Great news!