Team at the Freshwater Institute arranges for fish from their research to be saved for the table instead of being turned into compost.

The night John Davidson helped prepare dinner at an area soup kitchen was a culminating moment. The menu included Arctic char, and the pride he took in serving it was as if he had spent the day pulling each and every fish off a hook from the edge of a riverbank. It was almost as good. Davidson, colleague Tom Waldrop, and the entire team at the Freshwater Institute arranged for fish from their research be saved for the table instead of being turned into compost.

The Freshwater Institute in Shepherdstown, W.Va., combines applied research, engineering design, and economic development strategies in aquaculture to help grow the fish industry in an environmentally responsible way. In other words, they are developing ways to raise more fish to satisfy world demand, using less water and energy. The Institute was founded in 1986, and is supported in part by grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. It is a program of the Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit focusing on the conservation of land and water resources. Current research involves large-scale water circulation systems that conserve the water needed to farm fish, recycling as much as 95 percent of the water. Analysts say it is the future of the aquaculture industry.

The Institute conserves resources at each of three stages of fish development: incubation, adolescence and adult, when the fish reach an average weight of 1.5 to 2.0 pounds. At the end of each 18-month cycle, the fish must be harvested. And that’s what posed the dilemma for Davidson, Waldrop, and the FI team. "The original plan was to compost the fish in an environmentally friendly way," they said. "But we dreaded to think that here we were raising these fish we knew were perfectly good to eat, and then wasting them."

Waldrop did some Internet research, and Davidson talked to a friend involved in Hunters Feeding the Hungry to investigate ways they might put the fish into the mouths of hungry people. They started making small donations to local rescue missions, but Davidson says, "Our scale of production – between 50,000 and 100,000 pounds per year – provided too much fish for them to use." A contact with an organization called Second Harvest led them to the Federation of Virginia Food Banks and the Capital Area Food Bank. Since 2003, the Institute has donated 181,273 pounds of fish, now primarily rainbow trout, to the food banks. That equates roughly to 330,000 five-ounce meal portions. "It is a great team effort that has provided the Food Banks with much-needed high-quality protein, which has helped feed many hungry people, including children, nutritious, protein-rich meals," says Waldrop.

"For any family living on a meager income and having to scratch
for even the most basic of food choices for their children and themselves,
rainbow trout is truly a special treat for those at risk of going hungry
in our community."
~ Martin White, CEO of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank Network

"The receipt of rainbow trout is both a truly nutritious and welcome site for those we serve," says Martin White, CEO of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank Network in Verona, Va. "For any family living on a meager income and having to scratch for even the most basic of food choices for their children and themselves, rainbow trout is truly a special treat for those at risk of going hungry in our community. As a food banker, and someone who sees the faces of those receiving this trout, I am so thankful and overjoyed for this most gracious food donation and what it means to those not having enough food and food choices."

One reason for the enthusiasm of the Institute team is that the plan to donate fish in no way hurts the business of other fish farming operations, which the Institute is trying to help. Also, in terms of cost, it involves the same manpower to harvest the fish for food or harvest them for compost. Instead of buying composting material, they buy ice to store the fish for shipping. "As part of our research objectives, we produce market-size fish in our recirculating system. These fish have to be harvested or removed from the system. Regardless of whether we were going to donate or compost the fish, the effort it takes to compost is relatively the same as the effort to pack the fish in totes and load a truck," said Davidson.

To harvest the fish, the Institute uses graders, airlift pumps and a grading table. A PVC grader is placed in the tank to crowd the fish together. Smaller fish can pass through, while the larger fish are enclosed within the grader. The fish are then airlift pumped out of the tank onto a hand-sorting table, where personnel sort fish for desired weight. Fish that are under the desired weight are returned to the tank for further growth. The Fish are laid out on beds of ice in insulated plastic crates or totes, each about the size of a small sofa, where they travel by truck to processing plants. The Wanchese Fish Company in Suffolk, Va., and Murray L. Nixon Fishery, Inc., of Edenton, N.C., process the fish for distribution to the food banks. The harvesting process occurs every two to four weeks.

"It was a learning experience from Day 1," Waldrop and Davidson recall. "It took a lot of phone calls and research that resulted in the partnership we have today. Through Second Harvest, and grants from Kraft Foods, the Federation of Virginia Food Banks was much more equipped to help us make the donation process a reality. The hardest part was the logistics. It took a lot of time and brainstorming to figure out transportation for the fish, processing, and the timing of everything to ensure that the Food Banks were receiving a high quality fresh product. In the end, we all made it happen.”

It’s a streamlined process now, and one the Freshwater Institute staff hope other food producers might learn from and emulate. While not all might be able to contribute the volume that comes from the Institute, Waldrop and Davidson remind us that “every little bit helps.” 

The fish feed more than the hungry. They nourish the morale of the staff at the Freshwater Institute – just like the day Davidson fried fish at the soup kitchen.  “Some people got real excited, and others hadn’t seen fish before,” he remembers. But there was a smile on everyone's face.