September 23, 2019 — A pilot project to give commercial fishing bycatch to the hungry officially launched Friday in New Jersey, where the America’s Gleaned Seafood volunteer program and Trinity Seafoods have made the first deliveries.
“They have a lot of leftover fish they can’t use. But its’s perfectly good fish,” said Kim Guadagno, the CEO and president of Fulfill, a nonprofit regional food bank, at a media conference at the Fishermen’s Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.
After more than two years of careful organizing, gleaning advocates made the first deliveries in August, moving 2,300 pounds of unregulated species — mostly cownose and bat rays — that were processed and frozen into 630 pounds of kitchen-ready product at Trinity’s facility in Lakewood, N.J., said company president Mike Carson.
The fish went to several pantries, soup kitchens and a women’s shelter. St. Mark’s Food Pantry and Soup Kitchen in Keansburg, N.J. was one of the first users, where its chef used ray as the basis for cioppino, an Italian-style fish stew.
The fish were well-received by users, and will help fill a chronic shortage for food banks, said Guadagno, a former New Jersey lieutenant governor.
Fulfill serves Monmouth and Ocean counties on the New Jersey coast, where “136,000 people will go to bed tonight not knowing where they’re next meal is coming from. Fifty thousand of them are children,” she said. “I can’t keep enough protein on the shelf. This fish is a found source of protein.”