Consumer demand for seafood significantly declined in response to the sweeping restaurant closures associated with public health and safety guidelines limiting human occupancy resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, economic output similarly declined, impacting the resiliency of our coastal economies as a nation. In response to the reduction in seafood demand from traditional supply streams such as fish auctions and seafood processors, many seafood producers attempted to shift sales to a direct consumer pathway. However, the transition to direct consumer sales was not easy for seafood producers, nor have the difficulties been evenly spread across supply sectors (i.e. shellfish aquaculture vs. wild harvest fisheries). In response, Delaware Sea Grant (DESG) mobilized an online seafood producer and/or harvester resource page (https://www.foxnews.com/us/commercial-fishermen-seafood-restaurant-closures-struggles ).
To further connectivity between seafood suppliers and the public, staff from DESG engaged in a multistage effort to advance direct marketing opportunities, impacting economic opportunities for aquaculturists and commercial fishers in Delaware. The first stage of our plan assisted suppliers of locally produced and harvested seafood options by enhancing direct consumer sales through the development of a network of interested consumers. The second stage of our plan enhanced online marketplace opportunities. The third piece to our strategy focused on marketing and advertising to broaden our potential economic impact through the broader tourism industry. And finally, we worked with our shellfish aquaculture producers to purchase over-grown oysters that were larger than market preferred half-shell oysters for use in a restoration initiative with a non-profit organization, supplementing a transplant fishery for bottom ground lease holders in Delaware Bay. As designed, our efforts expanded outward in space from local to regional scales in a controlled manner, similarly expanding in time to match potential governmental re-openings in the region so that as this plan unfurled, our realized impacts grew in a stepwise fashion.