Where's The Seafood?! Why It’s Missing from Future Food Talks and What We Can Do About It

Last week, we stepped out of the seafood bubble and into the The Culinary Institute of America for Menus of Change (MOC)—a conference brimming with optimism, innovation, and culinary leaders reimagining how we feed the world more equitably and sustainably.

But as the seafoodies in the room, we couldn’t help but take note of a certain absence from the table...

The Future Forgot About Seafood

Many of the conversations centered around plant-forward innovation, a strategy focused on giving nutrient and benefit rich plants more of a presence at the center of the plate, not just as sides. Land-based animal proteins, of course, featured at the center of discussions about climate impact, sourcing opportunities and challenges, and menu strategies.

There was one session we were particularly looking forward to: Supporting and Expanding Ethical, Values-Based Sourcing of Animal Proteins. We felt the glimmer of hope that this would be the moment seafood finally entered the conversation.

Imagine our disappointment when a slide comparing the environmental impacts of various animal proteins came up, and seafood doesn't even garner a mention. We'll admit, that one stung a little bit.

Supporting and Expanding Ethical, Values-Based Sourcing of Animal Proteins presentation at the Menus of Change conference. Not a mention of seafood in sight.

Supporting and Expanding Ethical, Values-Based Sourcing of Animal Proteins presentation at the Menus of Change conference. Not a mention of seafood in sight.

This session focused on how chefs and foodservice operators are working to source animal proteins more ethically, while shifting menus to make plant-based dishes more familiarly accepted. This isn’t an effort to remove meat altogether, but to reposition plant-based meals as the chef’s special or the go-to option in a way that diners will respond positively to.

While we feel this is a positive approach to more inclusion of plant-forward dishes, we think it’s time the conversation moved beyond a binary choice between meat or plants. Seafood represents a middle ground, and a way forward that doesn’t rely on extremes.

We’re not saying seafood is a silver bullet, but it is a worthy contender. Considering the breadth of species diversity, low impact production potential, and preparation options, it offers real opportunities to address many challenges MOC is looking to solve. But for those positive opportunities to exist, we need to start by holding a place at the table.

So do we just invite ourselves in or…?

We’re not here to call out the event. It was a 5 star experience — would go again. But we are asking why? Why does seafood keep getting left out of conversations that are fundamentally about the future of food?

It’s not just this one panel or even this one conference, it’s part of a broader pattern. Ocean conservation events that forget the seafood story. Food security panels that skip seafood’s role in feeding more than a third of the global population as their primary protein source. Culinary summits that don’t mention the ocean at all. We’re in the middle of a global push to redesign food systems—and yet the protein that makes the most sense for a planet that’s 80% water is regularly ignored.

Take this week’s conference as an example. Many of the conversations were focused on large-scale foodservice—hospitals, schools, institutional settings. And seafood was almost entirely absent.

We’ve heard the litany of reasons: it’s too perishable, it smells, it’s expensive, people don’t know how to cook it, kids won’t eat it. But these are exactly the kinds of challenges we should be tackling. These are the places where seafood should be playing a major role, especially given its unmatched nutritional value and benefits for developing minds. But if seafood isn’t in the room to hear these concerns and offer solutions, we have no opportunity to make the case for its role in feeding the future.

As we’ve touched on before, seafood is harder to visualize. We’re land creatures, wired to understand food systems we can see and touch. So unless we deliberately make an effort to show up to these conversations outside our own sector, we get overlooked—not out of malice, but out of habit. Thus the silo effect deepens and seafood becomes overlooked in the family of future foods.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Show Up to the Table (and bring a host gift)

Seafood has just as much potential to offer joy and connection as any other part of the plate by creating experiences that are both craveable and values-driven. We as a sector can show up by making seafood both accessible and exciting, not as a competitor to plant-based, but as a complementary part of a more thoughtfully delicious food future.

And we are starting to see glimmers of that. There are brands, campaigns, and creators who understand that taste and values don’t need to live on opposite shores—they can, and should, co-exist.

Even at Menus of Change, while seafood wasn’t always part of the main-stage conversations, it popped up on our plates during a few key moments. Our lunch bento featured perfectly prepared Ora King Salmon that we’re still dreaming about, and the happy hour reception included locally grown trout from Hudson Valley Fisheries —an incredible example of how innovative and place-based seafood can be. (Yes, they’re raising fish in upstate New York. And it tastes amazing.)

And perhaps most importantly, we spoke to so many people from the Culinary Institute of America who are excited about seafood. They want to see it take a bigger role in this conversation. They’re ready to welcome it into future programming when we, as an industry, are ready to jump in.

If we want seafood to be part of the future-of-food conversation, we need to stop waiting for an invitation and just pull up a chair. That means investing in our storytelling, showing up at cross-sector events, and engaging with people outside our own echo chamber.

So yes—seafood belongs here. But we can’t just hope to be remembered. We have to show up, speak up, and offer something worth tasting to the table.