Program gives Maine fish fillets to schools and food banks

Program helps keep Maine groundfishing crews working while feeding schools

Fishermen Feeding Mainers is using locally caught groundfish to address two strains hitting Maine at the same time: financial pressure on crews that rely on cod and haddock, and rising food insecurity as grocery and fuel costs climb. The program, which began in late 2020, buys fish when local auction prices fall and turns it into frozen fillets that schools and food banks in Maine can pick up, according to the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association and other participants.

NPR reported that the effort has spent more than $4 million on purchasing and processing about 1.3 million pounds of locally caught fish since it started. That spending includes a pandemic-era push to create demand for local product after restaurant closures contributed to weaker fish prices, the report said. For Boothbay fisherman Devyn Campbell, the program also changed the economics of what he could earn for his catch: “Before this [program], chances were you could get down to some really scary-low prices,” he said.

The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association runs the program and tracks its outcomes through donated meals. The association said it has donated more than 1.8 million meals to food banks, schools and other institutions since October 2020, including more than 200,000 meals last year. Mary Hudson, director of fisheries programs at the association, said the effort also aims to create future seafood demand by making fish a more regular menu item for students.

Hudson said Fishermen Feeding Mainers began with a roughly $374,000 donation from a foundation that chose to remain anonymous. Since then, the association has supplemented that initial start with private donations, grants and state and federal funding to keep purchasing and processing on track. She described how the group monitors Portland Fish Exchange auctions and uses program funds to buy specific species when the auction price dips below a level set by the program.

After purchase, the fish is filleted and frozen, and schools and food banks come to Portland to pick it up. Hudson said some school districts near the northern tip of Maine have driven more than 10 hours round trip multiple times for the free haul. She and NPR described how the donated fillets can give food providers a way to add fish to menus without having to compete with higher retail seafood prices, including prices that rose at the end of 2025, according to SeafoodSource.

The program’s footprint shows up in school lunchrooms as well as in donation sites. On a Thursday in March, NPR reported that local haddock appeared on the lunch menu at nearby Westbrook High School. Mary Emerson, Westbrook School Department school nutrition director, said the program lets her staff focus on recipes rather than on costs or sourcing: “We’re really proud about what we’re doing, because we are featuring fish more often during the month,” she said, adding that she has transported as much as 200 pounds of fish at a time in her Toyota Prius.

Emerson said the staff members receiving the free fillets do not always have experience preparing raw fish. The Gulf of Maine Research Institute, a Portland nonprofit that trains school food service staff, conducts sessions to help them become comfortable with the product and with cooking fish. Sophie Scott, the institute’s sustainable seafood program manager, said staff can “look at the fish, touch the fish, cut the fish, try [different species] next to each other,” before making simple recipes that they can taste themselves.

Scott said student feedback often comes more easily than adult buy-in. “It’s not the kids who we have to convince around getting fish on the menu,” she said. “It’s really the adults.” The institute also develops classroom curricula tied to the fish being served and holds tastings so students can give feedback on recipes, NPR reported, with examples including dishes such as Iraqi Seven Spiced Fish and Buffalo Fish Dip.

The program comes as Maine’s groundfishing industry remains under pressure from multiple directions. NPR said groundfishing stretches back to Colonial America and that by the 1990s overfishing and other factors contributed to collapses of several groundfish species in New England waters. It also reported that populations in the Gulf of Maine are still recovering, in part because the gulf is warming faster than most of the world’s oceans, while fuel and operating costs keep rising and federal catch quotas limit landings.

Hudson described the burden on boats from overlapping costs. “The overhead just keeps getting worse on everything, from quota costs to fuel and ice and crew and food — everything,” she said. She estimated that more than 300 fishing boats landed in Portland in the 1990s, but that now there are about 20. Campbell recalled that in 2023 fish prices fell so low the crew was not even paid for work, telling NPR, “I just remember that we didn’t make any money. I didn’t make any money for three days of work.”

Hudson said Fishermen Feeding Mainers has improved the situation for people throughout the supply chain. She said the program helps keep boats fishing and allows processors onshore to handle local product, while providing fish to food-insecure people and schoolchildren. Campbell and Hudson framed the program as more than emergency relief: on a “selfish” level, Hudson said it can create future markets because students and their families may become consumers as those children grow up.