Sea Pact Grantee Update: Seafood Literacy for Retailers by Barton Seaver, powered by Rouxbe
Barton Seaver, Founder and Chief Education Officer, SeafoodLiteracy.com, provided the following update:
I’m so pleased to receive a Sea Pact grant in 2022-2023 for the collaborative creation of our online educational program “Seafood Literacy for Retailers.” This 4-hour program was adapted from our original Seafood Literacy program and tweaked with input from Sea Pact members. The resulting program is a great tool to teach counter staff needed information as well as to learn from them how and what they most need to learn.
Retail seafood counter staff associates are frequently under-prepared to answer questions for the consumer, partially because consumers themselves are often misinformed. Initial surveys we have conducted to gauge interest and need for this education indicated that a majority of counter staff we queried believe fresh to be superior to frozen, and wild to be better quality than farmed across the board. Many also do not eat seafood themselves and have little to no knowledge of how to prepare seafood.
Through proven video education pedagogy, this program will give frontline seafood representatives better understanding of the importance of sustainable sourcing, how to prepare and cook seafood, and build their confidence in selling seafood - a skillset we call Seafood Literacy. With the confidence and competence to take full advantage of all the unique qualities of fish, shellfish and sea veggies have to offer, retailers may earn more customer loyalty and create demand for a greater diversity of species and market forms.
The course uses a combination of learning modalities including text and video, as well as self-assessments. We cover topics such as why sustainable seafood matters, sustainability from sourcing to serving, types of fishing and aquaculture methods, how to talk to customers about seafood, understanding seafood culinary categories, and basic seafood cooking techniques.
We recently launched the program and are currently enrolling retail seafood counter associates into the online, mobile-accessible course. Our goal in this beta phase is to have 100 Sea Pact members and customers users complete the course. Users will have 30 days to complete the program and post-course surveys. We will present a final report highlighting pre- and post-course questionnaires and individual self-reported responses as well as completion rates.
For more information check out the program at https://seafoodretailer.rouxbe.com/ (Use access code: eatseafood for complimentary access) or contact Katy at katy@forcodandcountry.com