From boat to food bank to dining hall: how local chowder became a community solution [Webinar]

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021; 2 – 3 PM ET

Join FINE and the New England Farm & Sea to Campus Network (FSCN) for a one-hour webinar to learn more about an inspiring partnership and ways to support local seafood and our regional food system.

Hosted by: Farm to Institution New England and the New England Farm & Sea to Campus Network

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The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance (CCCFA) was looking for a way to support its small boat fishermen when the usual markets for their seafood hit hard times during the COVID-19 pandemic. With major support from national philanthropic sources committed to helping fishermen survive the pandemic while serving food-insecure communities, as well as MIT Sea Grant and new partners from across the food system, they developed a seafood chowder from Cape-caught haddock. A true collaboration by local partners, the fish are caught by independent fishermen, processed by a local processor, and made into the chowder by a family-owned company, all based in MA. This chowder helped feed New England communities, going to food banks and community pantries throughout the region. Working with MIT Dining, they then modified packaging and delivery to serve institutional, food service markets as well.

Join Seth Rolbein of the Cape Cod Fishermen’s Trust, a program under the umbrella of the Fishermen’s Alliance, and Mark Hayes of MIT Dining to learn how this project supports our local food system and fishermen, how they developed this chowder for institutional dining, and how the students, faculty and staff reacted! Whether you’re a dining director, food system advocate, fisherman, or interested in supporting regional food systems, you’ll come away from this webinar inspired by this story of innovation and collaboration.

Moderator

Tania Taranovski | Director of Programs, Farm to Institution New England

Speakers

Seth Rolbein | Director, Cape Cod Fisheries Trust

Mark Hayes | Director of Campus Dining, MIT

SPEAKER BIOS

Seth Rolbein is the Director of the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust. Seth began his career as a journalist in the mid-Cape in the 1970s. He then joined WGBH-TV in Boston as a writer, reporter and documentary filmmaker, also writing for many regional and national publications, including The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. His magazine and book-length fiction and non-fiction has spanned many topics (and continents), and his documentaries on National Public Television have won multiple national awards. Throughout, the Cape has been his home; our relationship to the oceans and the survival of our fishing community has been a recurring theme. He became editor-in-chief of the region’s weekly newspaper chain before starting The Cape Cod Voice as the newsmagazine’s founding editor and publisher. Most recently, he served for six years as chief of staff and then senior adviser for Cape and Islands Senator Dan Wolf, translating a journalist’s perspective into public policy initiatives.

Mark Hayes, Ed.D., is the Director of Campus Dining at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a role he has held since 2018. He previously worked at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs (UCCS), where he oversaw dining and hospitality services and several auxiliary business services including the book store, and a campus working farm. Before UCCS, Mark oversaw dining and summer conference operations at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, and at Harvard, where he managed dining in the Quincy House residential community and in the kosher kitchen in Rosovsky Hall, home to Harvard Hillel. Beyond his campus dining experience, Mark opened restaurants in the Netherlands and Singapore, and in 2001 helped open Italian eatery Lidia’s Pittsburgh with Beard Award-winning chef Lidia Bastianich.