Profiles

Henry Lovejoy

Henry Lovejoy is the president and founder of EcoFish Inc., founded in 1999; at the time, EcoFish was the only seafood company in the world whose sole mission is to identify and market seafood that comes exclusively from environmentally sustainable fisheries. The New Hampshire company, named a 2006 Seafood Champion, donates a percentage of every sale to help support marine conservation efforts.

What is your favorite seafood?
Sablefish, which comes from the Alaskan longline fishery, is now my favorite fish. I ate it for the first time last year at the Blue Ginger Restaurant near Boston, where the “celebrity chef” Ming Tsai prepared it. Interestingly, it became his signature dish, replacing Chilean sea bass, which he has now stopped serving. Sablefish (also know as black cod) is the fish most closely related to Chilean sea bass.

How did you get interested in the issue of sustainable seafood?
I began my career in the seafood industry right out of college by starting a live lobster exporting business. This allowed me to travel around the world and visit large seafood exchanges, where I got a good feel for the global scope of the industry. It was then that I realized that man’s ability to take from the ocean was much greater than the ocean's ability to replenish itself. I felt that the industry needed to change for its long-term survival. Because of my interest in environmental sustainability, if I were to remain in the industry, I decided that my business would have to focus on sustainable seafood.

How would you describe your philosophy on ocean conservation?
To wrap it up in a nutshell, I'd say it’s always best to err on the side of conservation. I'm a member of the seafood industry first and foremost—but that doesn't mean I can't be a conservationist at the same time. There are always going to be questions about the state of fish in the oceans, and some questions will never be answered very accurately. Frankly, it's a lot easier to go into the jungle and count elephants than it is to dive into the ocean and try to count the fish. So my philosophy is to get all of the scientific data available and then err on the side of conservation. This can ensure the long-term survival and sustainability of seafood species as well as fishing communities. At EcoFish, we're concerned about both of these.

Has your philosophy changed what fish you distribute?
Since it was formed, EcoFish is the only seafood distributor in the world that sells only environmentally sustainable seafood.

Have your customers noticed?
When customers work with EcoFish, they know what they’re getting. We see ourselves as a solution for consumers and customers who may have questions about the issues.

Have your customers worked with you on selling sustainable seafood?
Absolutely. When we first started the company, we naturally went for the lowest hanging fruit first, meaning restaurants and chefs amenable to our philosophy. We now work closely with the Chef’s Collaborative, a group that embraces sustainability issues as much as we do. They're purchasing from EcoFish because they care personally about the issues—they're not just patting themselves on the back. And they’re more than happy to recommend us to other restaurants.

Do you feel it limits you on what you can offer them?
Of course. There a tremendous number of markets we're not in by choice.
But one really neat thing about our philosophy is that you can have your fish and eat it too. Take the top 10 most consumed seafoods: We can provide our customers with most of the popular seafoods in the country in a sustainable way; you just need to do your research and find the right fisheries and where they came from. And that's what we're all about.

Why do you support Seafood Choices Alliance?
It’s perfectly in line with what we believe in. The great thing about Seafood Choices is that it’s a unifying body that does a tremendous amount of worthy efforts in the marine conservation field, especially on the education side. They had a great idea to pull all these efforts under one roof to try to unify everything into one cohesive message, which I feel is very important.

First posted November 15, 2002. Updated May 31, 2006.

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