BALTIMORE — “There’s a whole first mile before that fish gets to your plate,” says Stephanie Pazzaglia, Outreach and Development Manager for J.J. McDonnell & Co.
Thousands of pounds of seafood moves through the J.J. McDonnell facility in Elkridge, on its way to restaurants, grocery stores and eventually your stomach.
“We try our best to work with local and regional fishermen and watermen to make sure we tell that story along with the sourcing information. Making sure we continue to have access to domestic seafood is something that’s a little more of an underlying issue that most would think,” says Pazzaglia.
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Pazzaglia grew up in the industry, spending years working on commercial boats counting clams.
“It’s really all I know, don't ask me anything about meat or cheese,” says Pazzaglia.
They work with dozens of fishermen all over Maryland and Virginia, from pulling in seafood favorites like crab and shrimp.
“This is wild Chesapeake Bay Blue Catfish. It’s all hand cut in our facility. We get shipments every day from our local watermen,” says Pazzaglia.
For years, blue catfish have outnumbered and gobbled native species like striped bass and blue crab.
So the goal now is to catch more blue catfish.
Just in 2022 Maryland pulled in 2.6 million pounds of Chesapeake Bay Blue Catfish.
“We’ve been selling wild blue catfish for over 12 years now and have been processing it,” says Pazzaglia.
