Eighty top restaurants and more than 3,200 retailers nationwide are hosting a rolling wave of events through mid-October featuring Bristol Bay sockeye salmon.
From bakeries
to restaurants and lodges, chefs are showcasing their creativity and commitment
to the Bristol Bay fishery with events ranging from one-night special tasting
menus and month-long specials to dinner and a movie screenings of the Bristol
Bay documentary “Red Gold.” The events
were coordinated in partnership with Chefs Collaborative (www.chefscollaborative.org) a
national nonprofit chefs network that educates seafood buyers and chefs about
sustainable seafood.
Chef Kevin
Davis of Seattle’s Blueacre Seafood, a participating chef, said he is a huge
fan of Bristol Bay sockeye. “This is a beautiful fish, we love to serve it, and
it is a crime against nature that anyone would consider building a copper mine
where these fish reproduce year after year,” he said.
Retailers are
promoting Bristol Bay sockeye at their seafood counters with custom point of
sale materials urging customers “to protect wild salmon for the future by
eating one today.” Promotional materials include posters, recipe cards,
stickers, ice-spears and brochures.
Bob Waldrop,
executive director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association,
said the association has two goals in this educational effort.
“First, we
want people to understand that thousands of independently owned fishing
businesses are involved in this highly successful and completely sustainable
salmon fishery,” he said. “We are proud beyond words to be the current stewards
of this amazing natural resource. And second, that Bristol Bay’s salon runs and
our livelihoods are under direct threat from a large-scale copper mine that can
still be stopped. We need people to be
aware of that and we need them to take action.”
The effort
has attracted support from restaurants from coast to coast, including some in
Seattle, Portland, Oregon, Boston, Washington D.C., New York, Atlanta and
Newport, RI.