SpotTalk: State of Global Seafood

Fisherwoman and Northland College alumna Mary Ganchoff Smith will be serving up a wild Alaskan salmon chowder and other seasonal treats for the community Tuesday, October 27 at 6 p.m. at The Spot in Ashland. The cost: $10 per person, half of which will be donated to deserving Northland College student organizations. No need to reserve a spot.

At 7 p.m., she will give a lively and informative talk about the current state of global seafood.  Mary has been involved in the Sustainable Seafood Movement for over fifteen years. People need not attend the dinner to attend the presentation.

Mary is a 1998 graduate of the Culinary Institute of American. She now works as a commercial fisherman in southeast Alaska and co-owns a company called Springline Seafood with her husband, with a focus on direct marketing of frozen-at-sea, wild-caught seafood.

She and her husband recently became the publishers of Edible Alaska, a free journal that highlights Alaska’s regional food producers. The magazine is part of the Edible Communities family and will launch in May 2016.

Mary graduated from Northland College in 1994 with a BA in writing. She has spent the last fifteen years in a marketing career, ten years for Chicago-based seafood distribution company and the last five with another seafood distributor based in southern California. During this time, she helped introduce the concepts of environmental and social sustainability to the larger seafood industry. Smith has traveled around the world speaking on issues of marketing and sustainability and is a 2008 recipient of the Seafood Choices Alliance’s Seafood Champion award for her efforts.