Sixteen finalists and six winners were honored during the February 9-11 SeaWeb Seafood Summit in New Orleans, Louisiana, for their inspirational work promoting seafood sustainability. This year, for the first time, judges saluted excellence in four targeted categories: Leadership, Innovation, Vision and Advocacy. The finalists, four within each category, were initially announced at the Seafood Expo Asia in Hong Kong.
High Liner Foods’ Bill DiMento makes remarks after winning the Grand Champion Award.The first-ever Grand Champion Award was presented to Bill DiMento, corporate director of sustainability at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada-headquartered High Liner Foods, Inc., for his work that stretched across all four categories. DiMento is an internationally recognized seafood sustainability leader with over 35 years of industry experience. He led High Liner’s efforts to achieve 99% of its strategic goal to sustainably source all of the company’s seafood.
The 2015 Seafood Champion Award for Leadership went to Dr. Andrew Jackson, technical director of the London, England-headquartered International Fishmeal and Fish Oil Organization (IFFO), for working with stakeholders toward creating a uniform standard and encouraging responsible production of fishmeal and fish oil, often used as feed in aquaculture. As a result of his efforts, more than 100 fishmeal/fish oil production plants in nine countries are now independently certified to IFFO’s standard.
AJackson2The Seafood Champion Award for Innovation was given to Tampa, Florida-based Anova Food, LLC in recognition of its Fishing & Living Initiative for advancing sustainable fisheries by incorporating community development and the well being of fishermen in their work to achieve environmental goals. Through fisheries improvement projects and education programs, Anova is working to bring the Indonesian handline yellowfin tuna into Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standards.
The Seafood Champion Award for Vision was went to T.J. Tate for her work as sustainability director at St. Augustine, Florida-based Gulf Wild, a brand of responsibly caught seafood providing traceability and accountability to each reef fish landed. She was recognized for pioneering work including video monitoring on fishing boats, bringing scientists and fishermen together, and creating a market for bycatch to avoid waste.
Judge John Goodlad (left) and SeaWeb President Dawn Martin (right) present the Seafood Champion Award for Advocacy to Steve Trent (second from left) of the Environmental Justice Foundation, and Koto Katano, representing winner Ayumu Katano, at the awards ceremony.
Finally, the Seafood Champion Award for Advocacy was shared between two winners, each of whom was presented with the prestigious prize: Ayumu Katano, a Japanese fisheries expert, author and educator, and the Environmental Justice Foundation. Katano’s focus on sustainability stands out in Japan, especially for his efforts to explain sustainability and fisheries in terms that resonate within the Japanese culture. The Environmental Justice Foundation’s Oceans Campaign has employed community-based surveillance and easy-to-use technology in regions including West Africa in its work to eradicate illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) or “pirate” fishing.
“The people, the organizations and the countries celebrated here tonight give us all hope for the future,” said Dawn M. Martin, SeaWeb’s president, during the ceremony. “In just the last few years we have seen tremendous growth in both the way the seafood industry has embraced sustainability and how the public has acknowledged its connection to ocean health. This year we received the greatest number of Seafood Champion nominations [over 100] in the history of the awards – a sign that the leadership on this issue continues to grow and that those leaders deserve to be recognized.”
