What happened to the 3,000 pounds of haddock seized in a fish-plant bust?

Shelley Edmundson is a founding member and executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, a nonprofit devoted to sustaining the island’s fishing culture. Credit: Courtesy of Brooke Bartletta

by Arthur Hirsch  November 28, 2024

The New Bedford Light, newbedfordlight.org

https://newbedfordlight.org/what-happened-to-the-3000-pounds-of-haddock-seized-in-a-fish-plant-bust/

Acting Col. Patrick Moran of the Massachusetts Environmental Police had a problem: 3,000 pounds of confiscated haddock on the New Bedford waterfront. The law against undersized catch had been enforced, but now what?

Out of a total load of 11,000 pounds that came off the boat, the seized fish had come up short of the required 16-inch length, Moran said at the time. Seized on Thursday, June 20, as Moran was making rounds of local fish processing houses, there it sat in a plant that the MEP declined to name.

Fortunately, Moran, who has since retired from the force, had been around the docks awhile. He knew Shelley Edmundson, a founding member and executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, a nonprofit devoted to sustaining the island’s fishing culture. He made a call.

His timing could have been better, and it could have been worse.

Edmundson was out on a ferry, but duty called. Among her organization’s enterprises is processing and packaging fish caught in local waters when the market for it sags, or if a planned sale falls through. The idea is to get fishermen a fair price, and not waste food.

Moran asked: Could she take this seized haddock?

The Trust has been around since 2011, but this was a first for the organization: an offer of undersized, illegal, confiscated fish. Lots of it. 

How Environmental Police ensure no confiscated fish are wasted

Donating fish is one way the Massachusetts Environmental Police disposes of confiscated catch, said Lt. Col. Chris Baker. The agency sometimes sells seized fish at auction. Through a formal legal process, it can have the auction proceeds declared a forfeiture, with the money used to pay costs and also dropped into the state’s general fund.

If confiscated fish are still alive, Baker said, they can also be returned to the waters whence they came. 

In consultation with agency supervisors, Baker said, “it’s the officer’s discretion” on how to dispose of confiscated fish in the state’s best interests. 

Baker could not say how often this sort of seizure happens. But he said a 3,000-pound haul is about in the mid-range of the confiscations he’s seen — from commercial operations in New Bedford, Boston and Gloucester to recreational fishing.

One shack, 2,262 pounds of haddock

Edmundson wants to make the most of every chance to get food into the hands of local food pantries to meet an ever-growing need. Yes, even on Martha’s Vineyard, summer playground of the glitterati. 

But, this big load of haddock would be complicated, she said. 

As Edmundson out at sea spoke to Moran, her organization’s little cedar-shingled shack near the beach in Menemsha was up to the gills in fish. 

The Trust had just taken in 600 pounds of fluke. The fisherman who caught it had gone out a few days earlier thinking he had a buyer for the catch he would bring in. By the time he returned the wholesaler had made other plans.

The fluke load was beyond the capacity of the shack, a wooden structure about the size of a studio apartment equipped with freezers, an ice maker, and a walk-in cooler with a lobster tank inside. There might be room for skilled hands to fillet 200 pounds a day, Edmundson said.

Edmundson had a tent and work tables quickly set up outside and corralled a crew of about six people to dive in, fillet the fish, and wrap it in one-pound packs for freezing and handing off to local food pantries.

Then comes a load of haddock.

“We never know what’s going to happen,” said Edmundson, who earned a doctorate in zoology — her research specialty was channeled whelks, a marine snail  — as the Trust was taking shape.

At that point, Moran was just asking Edmundson about 1,000 pounds. The number would ultimately grow to 2,262 pounds of the 3,000-pound haul.  

In June, Moran told the Light that some of the confiscated fish was also donated to Wampanoag groups on Martha’s Vineyard and on Cape Cod. He could not be reached for this story to confirm details.

Edmundson, meanwhile, was on the task. “I was on the ferry traveling, trying to orchestrate all this,” Edmundson said. 

She called Gary Yang, the president of Ocean C Star, a processing house on Homers Wharf in New Bedford, not far from where the haddock had been seized. 

Yang agreed to have his crew process the fish, put it into 10-pound bags, freeze it and load it onto one of the boats he has making regular trips to the island. As Edmundson recalled, the processed haddock arrived on Sunday, three days after it was seized.

The ton-plus of haddock made 560 pounds of fillet. The Trust’s processing cost was $3.25 a pound of whole fish, which came to $7,351, Edmundson said. 

Fortunately, the organization had the money on hand. Grants for these things do not make a steady, predictable flow, Edmundson said, but this past summer the Trust received three grants totaling $50,000.

“The timing worked out,” she said. 

She said some 460 pounds of the fillets went to the Island Food Pantry, the largest such operation on the island, run by Island Grown Initiatives, another nonprofit on Martha’s Vineyard. The rest was donated to Kinship Heals, an organization of the Wampanoag nation on the island.

“It was a really cool thing to be a part of,” Edmundson said. “You just knew you were on some sort of a ride … It was great to see the community coming together.”

Good timing for the local food pantries as well, said Merrick Carreiro, the food equity director for Island Grown Initiative of Martha’s Vineyard.

At the time, the Greater Boston Food Bank, usually a reliable source of fish, had none to provide, Carreiro said. The haddock donation “came at the perfect time,” she said. 

Established in 2006, Island Grown Initiative works to boost local food production, curb food waste, cultivate farming techniques that are climate friendly and expand access on the island to healthy, affordable food. 

There’s more need for a food pantry on Martha’s Vineyard than might be suggested by the island’s popular image as a haven for the rich and famous, Carreiro said.

“It’s so expensive to live here,” Carreiro said. “We have quite a significant older population. A lot of people live on fixed incomes.”

She said through October this year, the initiative’s Island Food Pantry has provided for more than 5,900 people, counting household members of those who picked up food at the location in Oak Bluffs. That’s more than a quarter of the island’s year-round population.

The haddock fillets “flew off the shelves,” she said, adding that she believed it was the first time the Island Grown Initiative had handled fish from a confiscated, illegal catch.

“What’s amazing is none of it went to waste, none of it,” she said. 

Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.

Local fishing nonprofit receives $50,000 donation

MV Times article, June 20, 2023, by Mia Vittimberga

Tito’s Handmade Vodka partnered with the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust (MVFPT) to fund a new gin boom, a type of hydraulic crane that helps unload heavy catches from fishing vessels.

According to Tito’s, the boom will help approximately 25 to 30 commercial fishing businesses, mainly on the Island. But they say it has the potential to help upwards of 100.

The boom unveiled in Menemsha during a ceremony last week.

MVFPT Executive Director Shelley Edmundson said that gin booms are critical to the fishing industry. “Without a gin boom, our harbor will start to lose its supply of local seafood, which would impact not only our commercial fishermen, but the restaurants and other wholesale and retail seafood markets,” Edmundson said.

Tito’s awarded MVFPT with $50,000. The majority of the funds went to the gin boom, with the remainder funding MVFPT’s Seafood Donation Program. This program donates seafood meals to food insecurity initiatives.

Finn Briggs, Tito’s Massachusetts State Manager, is from the Island. Last year, he nominated the MVFPT to take part in a charity event affiliated with “Love, Tito’s,” Tito’s philanthropy program.

Tito's then asked the MVFPT if there were any initiatives that they could support. “We really like to lean into what our employees are passionate about, and MVFPT was something our team members in Massachusetts were really passionate about,” Tito’s Director of Philanthropy Operations Lindsey Bates said.

MVFPT has faced challenges, especially during the COVID pandemic. “The whole seafood market and food supply chain broke down,” said Edmundson. Yet these challenges resulted in the launch of MVFPT’s Seafood Donation program. “The success of this program and its impact continues to grow,” said Edmundson. “Tito’s Handmade Vodka’s support has helped continue our ability to purchase seafood from local fishermen and offer high quality seafood to our food insecurity programs.”

Edmundson anticipates that MVFPT will continue to work on supporting the Island’s commercial fishing industry. MVFPT also hopes to do educational work and develop apprenticeship programs.

Community seafood program distributes black sea bass

MV Times article, March 26, 2021 by Lucas Thors

The Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust (MVFPT) has expanded its community seafood program, and is looking to distribute more than 36,500 containers of black sea bass stew and chowder to Island folks.

This includes organizations like the Island Food Pantry, the Good Shepherd Parish, Serving Hands, M.V. Boys & Girls Club, First Congregational Church of West Tisbury, and other groups that can distribute food to the community.

Recently, the trust was awarded a $406,000 grant to help expand the seafood program in order to purchase and process black sea bass and scup to be made into chowder and stew. The grant was awarded by Catch Together, a nonprofit organization that invests capital in support of fishermen, fishing communities, and ocean conservation throughout the country.

The grant provided the Trust with the ability to purchase 40,000 pounds of black sea bass and 2,500 pounds of scup last fall to be made into fish chowder and stew, and then donated to food insecurity organizations. The grant also offered fuel stipends to fishermen who were able to harvest sea bass scup, helping a total of 45 fishermen. To date, more than 6,500 containers of fish stew have been made, and more than 16,000 containers of fish chowder. According to MVFPT Executive Director, Shelley Edmundson, the original grant amount started out at around $200,000 to buy the sea bass. “We went through that amount of sea bass we had set aside from the grant in less than a week,” Edmundson said. “We ended up getting permission to expand, and basically doubled the program.”

After buying tens of thousands of pounds of fish from local fishermen, Edmundson said the fish were shipped to two different processors, who filleted the fish and froze it.

Over the past few months, the trust has been working on getting those fillets produced into fish stew and chowder. “Now we are in that final journey, where we have almost 20,000 containers of fish stew and chowder created. It’s been in different freezer storage spaces off-Island, and now we are orchestrating bringing a bunch of it to the Island to distribute,” she said. “The exciting part is now happening.” After two weeks, the entire distribution process will start again, until all the food that is being stored on the Island gets out to the public. “Then, we will go get another batch from one of the larger storage spaces and continue the cycle,” Edmundson said. They will also freeze some of the food to have on hand if the need arises.

The Community Seafood Program, according to Edmundson, began at the outset of COVID, when the trust was more focused on buying local sea scallops and donating them to food service organizations. MVFPT received a donation from the Fink Family Foundation to launch the sea scallop pilot program. They were also able to do a smaller-scale program where lobsters were purchased from local fishermen, and the trust worked with Island Grown Initiative to process them into lobster mac and cheese.

“Those were donated last fall. Offering the entire community high-quality, locally sourced protein — that is something we are really proud to feel like we were, and continue to be a part of,” Edmundson said.

She highlighted how all the food service organizations have worked closely together through the pandemic, and have learned how to be most efficient when collaborating. “Anyone who is connected to some sort of food outlet, to think through how that connection can be dispersed to more people and help more people on the Island. That’s something we and other organizations have been looking at closely,” Edmundson said.

The MVFPT also purchased the Menemsha Fish House, where it will be opening another program, called the Martha’s Vineyard Seafood Collaborative. The collaborative will serve as a wholesale fish market operated by MVFPT, with them purchasing any seafood that comes to the docks, and getting that out to Island sources like restaurants and caterers. “Our goal would be to have most of that food absorbed on the Island. Through that program, we hope to have seafood donations, even if it’s on a smaller scale,” Edmundson said. “We will be able to process food onsite, and my hope is we can get some grants to keep up all these donations to the different food groups.”