Premise: The chef community is a vital conduit of information between seafood producers and consumers. Chefs have a unique ability to educate folks in their communities about why they should care about the story of the food they are eating.
Mission: The Chef Community Series seeks to create enduring regional communities of like-minded chefs, restaurateurs, fishers, fishmongers, distributors and others in and around the seafood supply chain, collectively collaborating on public engagements and messaging campaigns to shift market demand toward local seafood with values and away from industrialized supply chains.
Project: This will be a three-year project piloted in New Orleans, Seattle and Boston, aimed at building ever-growing communities of chefs, seafood producers and fishmongers, and seafood eaters working and supporting local seafood with values. These communities will host a series of events aimed at engaging more seafood eaters throughout their cities and beyond in thoughtful, delicious conversation about why they should care about where their seafood comes from and why they should support local seafood producers, retailers and restaurants.
Background: The Slow Fish Rising Tide program brings seafood with values messaging and programming to Slow Food communities across the country. We’ve done this via a range of creative programming, including KNOW FISH Dinners® (sustainable seafood dinners featuring local fisherfolk), Seafood Throwdowns (two local chefs compete using local seafood), and Chefs Camps (a gathering of local chefs and fisherfolk to talk about direct seafood sourcing), among other events. The Chef Community Series builds on the success of those engagements.
Structure: This project will be a collaboration led by One Fish Foundation and featuring strategic partners such as Slow Fish North America, North American Marine Alliance, GRACE Communications Foundation and others. One Fish Foundation will provide national program coordination and administration, oversight, values alignment, budget development and management, advisory group coordination, program evaluation, reporting, technical assistance, chef and producer connections and communications.
Affinities: The Chef Community Series and Slow Fish Rising Tide are two separate but related programs:
- Rising Tide events are one-off community engagements that introduce folks to the conversation about seafood and aquaculture with values. These events have proved very effective in getting folks to think about their relationship to seafood.
- The Chef Community Series is an enduring program that will continue the conversation in target locations, reaching a growing audience.
Think of Rising Tide events as individual seeds planted. Think of Chef Communities as the full garden we’re nurturing over time. Our goal is for these gardens to grow, flourish and become more autonomous. Every Chef Community will foster a broader community of people supporting local seafood systems.
Schedule: Planning for initial projects in Seattle and New Orleans in early 2026 are already underway. Stay tuned for more info!
