Every Friday afternoon neighbors drop by Angela Chan’s house for their routine visit. Situated at the intersection of Rugby and Yale, a sizable cooler filled with ice sits in front of her house where each visitor sorts through individually wrapped bags for the one bearing their name filled with a curated selection of freshly caught seafood. Depending on the day's catch, these bags contain anything from mussels to oysters to various types of local fish.
This arrangement is made possible through Sea Forager, a community-supported fishery (CSF) program with pick-up locations all over the Bay Area. Dedicated to a mission of preserving healthy fisheries for future generations they support fishermen who fish responsibly, they provide fair compensation for everyone they work with, and they uphold transparency in the supply chain that allows consumers to trace each fish back to its origin. Along with sustainable packaging, they hold to standards that exceed those defined by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program.
With a longstanding appreciation for fresh, sustainable seafood, Angela and her husband Sam joined Sea Foragerin 2020 when the pandemic impacted the food industry and limited choices for food lovers. However, when they relocated to Kensington in 2022, just before the birth of their son, Angela noticed the absence of similar options in their new community so she decided to take the initiative by volunteering her house as the official Sea Forager delivery and pickup location for Kensington.
“We found that there were no pick-up sites in Kensington, so we began hosting them weekly on Fridays at our house,” says Angela. “it’s been a great opportunity to connect with neighbors and share our connection with the sea while supporting a local business.”
The Sea Forager program allows customers to select from various neighborhood pickup spots across the Bay Area and customize the size, type, and frequency of their orders. Choose between the Neptune's Delight which can include fish or shellfish, or the Slab, which is strictly fish fillets (no shellfish) and pick up your freshly caught seafood weekly, or biweekly, outside of Angela’s house right here in Kensington.
Angela's favorite deliveries have included local rockfish, salmon, and McFarland Springs rainbow trout and as part of the subscription, members learn about the seasons of seafood and get the story behind the fish along with prep tips and easy recipes. On the website www.seaforager.com visitors can subscribe to a package, manage their deliveries, and also sign up for their coastal fishing and foraging classes.
Kirk & Camilla Lombard, the husband/wife duo behind Sea Forager say, “We are lucky to live in a place with incredible bounty, community, and wonderful hosts like Angela. And while it feels good to do good, it also tastes better. Small boat hook and line fishermen take better care of their fish, and the result is a higher quality product that our Bay Area home cooks can really have fun with. Supporting healthy fisheries and the people who go the extra mile to catch and harvest them responsibly is tasty work!"
Thanks to the efforts of Sea Forager and Angela, our community has access to convenient, freshly caught, sustainable seafood to create satisfying meals without having to leave Kensington.
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