October 28, 2020 — Like wild fisheries, Maine’s aquaculture industry felt an enormous impact early in the pandemic with the shutdown of restaurants, the industry’s largest market and the setting where most seafood, wild and farmed, is consumed.
Mainebiz asked Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association in Hallowell, how the industry is faring now and what the outlook is going forward.
Here’s an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: How has the pandemic impacted the aquaculture industry?
Sebastian Belle: The impact was enormous, particularly when the restaurant sector shut down. It was a big shock to everybody, how quickly that impacted sales.
MB: What have seafood farmers done since then?
SB: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand we have to figure out a way to get seafood to consumers. The pandemic has forced an evolution of some of the industry’s distribution channels at an accelerated rate. Those changes were happening anyway, but the pandemic sped it up. Historically, the farmer sells to a local wholesaler, which then ships to a regional wholesaler, then to wholesaler in another region, then to a retail outlet. We saw individual farmers being very innovative in terms of figuring out other ways to sell their product. In particular, I’m thinking about direct distribution to consumers and retail.