May 21, 2020 — Americans are cooking more seafood while stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The New York Times.
For Ren Ostry, the owner of Culver City, California-based Kitchen Catch, that trend has resulted in a tripling of sales for her subscription seafood service, which touts the environmental and social benefits of eating bycatch and lesser-known species.
April 9, 2020 — Ren Ostry has been in the seafood world her entire adult life, and over the years she’s noticed a need for fundamental change in the supply chain. She started her business, Kitchen Catch, to see if a different seafood distribution model could catch on. “I felt like the system we were working in wasn’t set up to do anything sustainable,” said Ostry, “so we are really about deconstructing one of the oldest industries in the modern world and rebuilding it with the true values that can be found in the food justice movement.”
Kitchen Catch is a sustainable seafood subscription service based in Los Angeles. “We operate like a CSF, a community supported fishery, where all of our customers come together to support one fisherman a week,” Ostry said. Kitchen Catch is based on supply, not demand, so whatever comes in your Kitchen Catch box is what a fisherman caught that day, even if it’s not a popular species. “We source fish that people maybe have never heard of or tried before in an attempt to better support our local fishermen,” said Ostry
Change can be hard for people when it comes to food purchasing and preparation, but Kitchen Catch been successful in getting consumers to think outside the box and try new species. “We like to think of opening your Kitchen Catch box as not a replacement for opening a can of tuna but as a commitment to really challenging the way we look at proteins,” Ostry said. They also have a kosher fish only option for those looking to avoid products like shellfish, squid and shark. Recipes come in a weekly newsletter to provide guidance for those who aren’t familiar with the species in their box.