For more than three decades, SeaShare has worked with the commercial fishing and seafood industries to put high-quality seafood on the tables of families facing food insecurity. Now, the nonprofit has surpassed 270 million servings of seafood donated to food banks and feeding programs across the United States.
Foodtank recently highlighted SeaShare’s work and its efforts to address what the organization describes as a persistent protein gap at food banks. Protein accounts for only about 2 percent of food bank donations and remains in high demand, SeaShare executive director Hannah Lindoff told Foodtank.
“Protein can be expensive, and seafood is one of the more expensive forms of protein,” Lindoff said.
SeaShare traces its beginnings to Alaska’s pollock industry, where fishermen began donating bycatch that could not legally be sold rather than allowing the fish to go to waste. Thirty-one years later, the organization’s reach has expanded considerably. Bycatch now represents just 8 percent of its donations, with much of the seafood coming from first-run, marketable products donated by fishermen, processors, and other seafood businesses.
Those donations include salmon, halibut, Alaska pollock, Pacific white shrimp, rockfish, catfish, and tilapia.
SeaShare serves as a link between the seafood industry and food banks, helping coordinate processing, transportation, and distribution of a highly perishable product. In the contiguous United States, the organization works with established transportation routes and the Feeding America network. In Alaska, however, getting seafood to communities can require moving well beyond conventional shipping lanes.
“If we have a 30-pound box of salmon heading to an elder feeding program on an island with 65 residents, that donation is moving well outside of normal shipping lanes,” Lindoff shared.
The commercial fishing community will have another opportunity to support that work this November at the Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle.
National Fisherman’s Highliner Social & Awards will take place Thursday, Nov. 19, at the Seattle Convention Center Arch Building. The event celebrates National Fisherman’s 2026 Highliner Award recipients and brings the commercial fishing community together during the first evening of Expo.
Proceeds from the Highliner Social & Awards will benefit SeaShare, connecting the industry’s annual celebration with an organization built around getting seafood from the fishing community to people who need it most.
Pacific Marine Expo runs Nov. 19-21 at the Seattle Convention Center Arch Building.
