When customers waltz in to Bill Marinelli's Oyster Bar restaurant, many of them are not familiar with his menu, so he always asks them the same question.
Bill Marinelli, owner of The Oyster Bar restaurant.
"How much do you know about Thai seafood?". Shortly thereafter, he follows up with: "Do you care about the environment?" Everybody will answer "yes" to the second question, but few actually take steps to back up that conviction. Marinelli is hoping to start a coalition that changes eating habits in Thailand, forcing restaurants to consider what kind of seafood they serve and how it's sourced.
It would be difficult to overstate the problem — scientists estimate that at current rates of fishing, the oceans will be devoid of commercially viable species before 2050. The scientific journal Nature reported that only 10% of the world's large-fish population remains in the ocean compared to 1950.
Changing consumer behaviour often takes decades rather than years, but Marinelli is starting off with small steps, educating consumers through the practices at his restaurant and through various programmes. His Bangkok restaurant only serves seafood that is caught by hook and line, hand net or gill net. The menu lists where the seafood was sourced and the wait staff can converse with customers about how the seafood was caught and why that source is sustainable. Marinelli describes it as a never-ending learning process, but says it is already paying dividends.
In September, Kirimaya in Khao Yai became the first resort in the country to ban farmed salmon.
"For us, it is simply about trying to gain a competitive edge. Once I knew we could reliably get the product, the decision to serve only wild salmon was easy," says David Bedinghaus, culinary director at the resort.
A freshly shucked oyster at The Oyster Bar.
"Trying to know what our customers will like is a bit like pushing an elephant up a hill, as 98% are well-heeled Thais, mostly educated abroad. So they may be familiar with wild salmon, but mostly I just decided to be stubborn."
Bedinghaus says Kirimaya's sales staff noticed an immediate shift in sales once wild Alaskan salmon was offered in competition with farmed Norwegian salmon. Offering both at the same price was likely a factor, he says, but Thais were curious and the wild salmon started to get good feedback from customers.
Sustainable seafood is a thorny issue, as it will require consumers to eat different kinds of seafood and protein than they are used to, and seafood will become more expensive. There simply is not enough of the fish we have been eating to continue doing so, and this means a focus on smaller fish.
In addition to changing consumer behaviour, Marinelli is hoping he can make the case to big chain eateries as well.
"You can't expect businesses to make decisions based on the environment. Corporations have fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders, so the conversation is different than talking to an individual restaurateur," he says.
"When I talked to chefs and managers at some of the big name hotels here about a farmed salmon boycott, some of their faces blanched. Farmed seafood is the lifeblood of their profit margin, enabling them to offer more expensive imported meats in their buffets because customers will fill up on farmed salmon and other cheaper products first."
But the issue is not only about environmental concerns versus costs. Sustainable seafood advocates claim wild seafood tastes much better than farmed, and increasingly chefs are beginning to get the message.
"It doesn't matter if customers grasp the importance of sustainable seafood," says Tim Butler, chef at Eat Me restaurant in Bangkok. "The seafood tastes so good customers are willing to pay for it."
Butler says his restaurant's seafood became 90% sustainable (except for prawns) three years ago and the consumer feedback has been tremendous. "Restaurants should try to stay ahead of the demand curve. We've got to try to do something or we're guaranteed we won't be able to eat certain kinds of fish anymore."
In Thailand, being sustainable means importing seafood. Marinelli, also a marine biologist, travelled with some scientists to a shrimp farm in Thailand that was seeking organic certification.
"It was frightening. They don't understand cause and effect. We went with a fisheries expert from the Thai government and I asked, 'If we desalinate it, would you drink this water?'. He gave me a look like, 'Are you nuts?'. The toxicology report came back with presence of selenium, cadmium, arsenic and mercury. That's because the shrimp farm was within spitting distance of a shipyard, steel plant and soap factory," says Marinelli.
"It was so polluted the algae took over. The crabs and shellfish were all that were left, and these are filter feeders. Then we took a khlong boat through the rivers that feed into the Gulf of Thailand. They were so filthy they were filled with dead prawns that were near the surface because they were desperate for oxygen."
He and Bedinghaus are optimistic that an organic shrimp farm in Samut Prakan can be established with the help of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, but this would be a drop in the ocean for the world's largest shrimp producer. Marinelli says the only food he'll eat from Thai waters is squid and spirulina (a type of algae with high levels of protein).
His coalition is starting with a ban on farmed salmon, which Marinelli says contains more pollutants and is less nutritious and tasty than wild salmon.
"The line you hear most often is, 'I'm tired of salmon', and this is because farmed salmon tastes like cardboard. These fish are essentially fed dog food, and you are what you eat. Wild salmon has fewer calories and less saturated fat than farmed salmon, more omega-3 fatty acids, and considerably less heavy metals," he says.
Marinelli bought all the copies of World Without Fish from the publisher and distributed them to anyone willing to listen, including having his staff translate a copy. He also hosts screenings of The End Of The Line for people in the food industry to educate them about the importance of sustainability, including Sasin Business School at Chulalongkorn University.
The coalition has received support from several popular restaurants even though it has not officially launched, including Quince, Opposite, Appia and Peppina, Bo.lan, Nahm, Little Beast, Pavilions Phuket, Stacked Samui, as well as tacit nods from the Renaissance Hotel, Siam Hotel and the Sukosol Hotel.
"Marriott has a directive for 50% of its seafood to derive from sustainable sources by 2018, and Hyatt and Starwood are moving in the same direction, so there is hope," says Marinelli.
There is copious information about sustainable seafood online, but a first stop for consumers could be Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch programme (www.seafoodwatch.org), which provides an easy colour-coded guide on how to select seafood that has less impact on the environment.
