Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program is helping all of us help the oceans.
Michael’s headed to California today on an invitation from the Monterey Bay Aquarium to attend its annual Cooking for Solutions event where he will be honored with a distinguished group of chefs as a Seafood Ambassador.
The focus of Cooking for Solutions is to help people connect their individual buying decisions to the health of the oceans and the soil. The events support the aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, helping consumers make informed seafood choices while dining out or in the grocery store through pocket guides, website, mobile applications and outreach efforts. Since 1999, it has distributed tens of millions of pocket guides, had more than 240,000 iPhone app downloads, and cultivated close to 200 partners across North America, including the two largest food service companies in the U.S.
Seafood Watch is also a resource for the decision makers on the supply side of the marketplace — restaurateurs, food service companies and retailers like us. In fact, we recently called on their help with a question about grouper. Our sourcing decisions are made based on longtime relationships with trusted local suppliers, first and foremost. So when fisherman George Figueroa from Trigger Seafood came to us wanting to offer spear caught black grouper in the area of the Florida Keys, and because of the particular stigma attached to grouper, we made sure to check with Seafood Watch, too.
