And the Seafood Champions are.....

SeaWeb's annual Seafood Champion Awards reception was held last night at the Boston Westin in conjunction with the International Boston Seafood Show.  The room was packed wall-to-wall and among those in the room were four of the six Seafood Champion awardees whom we were honoring for the evening.  The 2011 winners are:

• Robert Clark, Executive Chef, C Restaurant, & Harry Kambolis, CEO, Kambolis Restaurant Group, Vancouver, Canada

• Phil Gibson, Group Director Perishable for Seafood, Safeway, Inc., San Francisco, California, United States

• Dune Lankard, Founder and Chairman, Eyak Preservation Council, Cordova, Alaska, United States

• Steve Phillips, President and CEO, Phillips Foods, Inc., and Seafood Restaurants, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

• Olivier Roellinger, Vice President, Relais & Châteaux, Paris, France

• Peter Weeden, Head Chef, Paternoster Chop House, London, United Kingdom      

Seafood Champions: Dune Lankard, Jonathan Cartwright (accepting award on behalf of Olivier Roellinger), Becky Marshall (SeaWeb), Harry Kambolis, Melanie Siggs (SeaWeb), Steve Phillips, Phil Gibson.  Not pictured: Robert Clark, Olivier Roellinger, Peter Weeden.

Unfortunately, Champions Olivier Roellinger, Peter Weeden and Robert Clark were unable to join us in person but their positive energy filled the room nontheless.

Now in its sixth year, the annual Seafood Champion Awards recognize outstanding leadership in advancing the market for sustainable seafood. Nominated by the seafood community and judged by a panel that includes previous winners, the awards have been bestowed upon individuals, companies and organizations from the fishing, aquaculture, seafood supply and distribution, retail, media, restaurant and foodservice sectors. Winners of this award have influenced the marketplace with regard to the sourcing of ocean-friendly seafood while successfully integrating innovative models to advance sustainability in the seafood industry. The Seafood Champion Awards are presented by SeaWeb’s Seafood Choices program. 

Talking Seafood Sustainability in Boston

SeaWeb will be in Boston, Massachusetts for the 2011 International Boston Seafood Show, which starts on Sunday March 20 and runs through Tuesday March 22.  While in Boston we’ll be announcing the winners of the 2011 Seafood Champions awards and celebrating their great achievements in seafood sustainability, so keep your eyes and ears peeled for that exciting news.  You can read more about the finalists and the awards here.  

SeaWeb's Seafood Choices team will also host a panel about illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing on Tuesday, March 22, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Show. During the past decade, the incidence of IUU fishing has grown at an alarming rate and irresponsible fishing activities undermine efforts to manage fisheries properly. As fisheries provide an important source of food, employment, income and recreation for people throughout the world and IUU fishing diminishes the resources for the millions of people who depend upon seafood for their livelihoods, this is a critical issue to be addressed.  We hope you’ll be able to join us for this presentation.  You can read more about Seafood Choices' work on IUU here.

We’ll be providing updates from Boston on this blog, so stay tuned as we continue the conversation on seafood sustainability.