Support the local business series #4 Blue Lobster

#4 Blue Lobster

CONNECTING FRESH FISH WITH LOCAL CONSUMERS

Blue Lobster is changing the way fish is bought and sold, by enabling fishermen to cut out the middlemen and sell directly to restaurants and end-consumers via a digital marketplace

Sustainability in fishery really started seeing the light of day in the 1990s. Today, it is an ongoing process, and companies such as Blue Lobster are there to serve some serious fish. With a forward-thinking business model, Blue Lobster has been highlighted by the likes of the Obama Foundation and Berlingske.

It is not unusual to have the fish on your dinner plate be as old as 4-6 days in addition to having travelled hundreds of miles. In contrast, Blue Lobster strives to deliver fresh, locally sourced fish within hours from your order placement. By supporting Blue Lobster, you are not only signing up for a great meal – you are sustaining your consciousness too. Read below to find out how Blue Lobster was realised, and how it incorporates 3 SDGs in its central operation.

Q&A

1) How did Blue Lobster start out?

Nima and Christine met in 2016 when they were part of the organising team of an annual student-run symposium called EuroEnviro. Christine used to spend the summers in Maine and would go down to the harbour to buy fish from the local fishermen. It was cheap, fresh, delicious, and she got to have a connection with the local fishermen. When she moved to Denmark, she was surprised to find that the fish available in grocery stores was limited, not very fresh and expensive. When Nima and Christine started talking to fishermen, they realised how much the small scale-fishermen were struggling to survive in the industry because of the many middlemen in the supply chain. The fishermen were being paid very little, and the logistics were inefficient with fish traveling all over Denmark to centralised auctions. Blue Lobster came about with the purpose of making the supply chain more efficient and ensuring that the fishermen using low impact, sustainable fishing gear are able to earn a fair wage for their catch.

2) Which SDGs does Blue Lobster tackle and how?

Above all, Blue Lobster aims to make it economically viable for fishermen to use low impact gear that has minimal impact on the marine environment. We focus on SDGs 8: decent work and economic growth, 14: life below water and 13: climate action.

Following SDG 8, we are using technology to ensure low impact fishermen are paid fairly. We aim to make low impact fishing the most economically viable way of fishing and ultimately make it the status quo in the fishing industry.

Following SDG 14, we are helping the fishing industry move towards low impact fishing techniques that have minimal impact on the environment, by making it the more economically viable option. We are able to pay low impact fishermen 2-4 times what they usually earn and give them access to a larger consumer base. On the other side, we are educating restaurants and consumers as to why it’s important to eat sustainably caught seafood.

Following SDG 13, we track and always try to minimise the CO2 emissions of different fishing methods and different fish species, and always minimise our transport distance.

3) How is the COVID-19 crisis affecting your business and how have you adapted?

Covid-19 for us meant that most of the restaurants we work with had to close down, but our fishermen have seen a huge increase in customers coming down to the docks and buying from them directly - which is really great to see. We’ve refocused our efforts on community building and have begun selling to private customers. In order to educate people on how to filet and cook with whole fish, we’ve been working with chefs around Copenhagen to create a recipe bank with easy-to-follow recipes and instructional videos on how to filet different types of fish. It’s been a trying time, but there’s a lot of love and support in the restaurant industry and we’re seeing so much creativity and innovation hoping up - both chefs and regular consumers are really up for trying new things - and that’s been really exciting for us to watch and be a part of.