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Chef Barton Seaver on Traceability in the Kitchen

Stories from the Hearth

Chefs have an important role to play in how we relay information about our food sources to our customers. The first and foremost priority of restaurants is to serve safe food. But increasingly consumers are beginning to demand food that has a story and chefs are now tasked with the role of storyteller. Menus have become an important communications tool in this dialogue, as not only do they convey the offerings for the night, they also help us sell a story. And just like reporters, chefs need to be able to have trusted sources to do so.

Traceability of product, or its source, in restaurant kitchens is as important as knowing what is in a dish. In a small kitchen, personal relationships can provide a great deal of trust and comfort when it comes to knowing the source of your food. I have had the great fortune of working directly with fishermen, and often times the person who caught the seafood is the one who delivered it to me. If all of our food could be handled this way, we would not need protections against the immense number of variables involved with buying seafood. But given that the seafood industry is a vast and globalized monster, personal relationships are hard to come by. In fact, this lack of personal relationships with our marine resources has led us to the predicament we currently face. If we were better connected to our ocean through the fishermen who provide for us, then perhaps we would not treat sea life with such disregard.

Knowing where our seafood comes from enables us to ensure a chain of custody that provides a guarantee of wholesomeness. Being that safe food is the first priority, knowing who has handled your seafood matters incredibly. But customers are now more educated and engaged with sustainable seafood due to campaigns such as Blue Ocean Institute and Monterey Bay Aquarium’s seafood wallet guides. These vocal and well-informed customers are looking for restaurants they can trust, and trust is a huge part of what restaurants purvey. When a chef does a little extra work and finds the sustainable options amid the murky reality of seafood, they need to know that they will be rewarded for their effort. Knowing exactly where your seafood comes from enables the chef and wait staff to confidently report their efforts and to build a dialogue with their guests. It is this dialogue that is so important and can create a loyal following that will keep a restaurant in business.

So I see traceability of seafood not as a burden but rather as an opportunity to build business and strengthen relationships with customers. It is also an opportunity to begin a meaningful discourse about the state of our ocean and seafood resources. Traceability provides a common language that can enable fluent conversation through a set of known facts. So as chefs become storytellers, we must take advantage of tools that prove we got our facts straight.