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Surging food costs and fuel prices are pummeling Maine's struggling groundfishing industry. But a pandemic-era program is helping to keep it afloat as inflation worsens, while also aiming to create a new generation of seafood lovers.
Fishermen Feeding Mainers began in late 2020 and raises money to buy locally caught fish, process it and donate the frozen fillets to schools and food banks in Maine. So far, it has spent more than $4 million on the purchasing and processing of about 1.3 million pounds of locally caught fish.
"Before this [program], chances were you could get down to some really scary-low prices," said Boothbay fisherman Devyn Campbell of the amount he could earn for his catch.
That's in part because the market for local fish dried up early in the COVID-19 pandemic when restaurants closed to in-person dining. "COVID destroyed all fish prices," Campbell said.
The arrival of the program threw a lifeline to Maine's struggling groundfishermen, who target bottom-dwelling species like cod and haddock. It also offered a free food source to locals at a time of worsening food insecurity. Now in its sixth year, Fishermen Feeding Mainers is helping local fishing crews deal with persistent financial pressures and is also affording places that don't usually offer fish — such as public schools — a chance to serve it up.
"A lot of parents, teachers, even nutritional staff were kind of hesitant about it at first, because they're like, 'Kids don't like fish,'" said Mary Hudson, director of fisheries programs at the Maine Coast Fishermen's Association, which operates the program. "They love it."
The Maine Coast Fishermen's Association has donated more than 1.8 million meals to food banks, schools and other institutions since October 2020. Last year alone, the program gave away over 200,000 meals.
And Hudson said the program could continue to pay dividends for years, as those students grow up and become consumers themselves. "On a selfish note, I'm like, this is creating future markets for us as well," she said.
How the program works
Fishermen Feeding Mainers began with a roughly $374,000 donation from a foundation that chose to remain anonymous. Since then, the Maine Coast Fishermen's Association has netted private donations, grants and state and federal funding to keep the program afloat.
During auctions at the Portland Fish Exchange, Hudson keeps a close eye on how fish prices fluctuate. When the price of a species dips below a certain level, Hudson uses program funds to buy the fish before the price sinks too low.
The fish is filleted and frozen, and food banks and schools have to come to Portland to pick it up. (Hudson said several school districts near the northern tip of Maine have driven more than 10 hours round trip multiple times for the free haul.)
It's a boon for food banks and schools, many of which may not be able to afford to purchase fish with rising inflation. Retail seafood prices rose at the end of 2025, according to the industry news website SeafoodSource.
The program also allows fishermen like Campbell to continue working with some security against unpredictable auction prices. Though he's still grappling with rising fuel costs and federal catch quotas, he said the financial picture for local fishermen has been improving.
And the benefits extend beyond the Portland docks.
"We are featuring fish more often"
On a Thursday in March, local haddock was on the lunch menu at nearby Westbrook High School.
Mary Emerson, the Westbrook School Department's school nutrition director, said the Fishermen Feeding Mainers program has enabled her to serve fish to students without having to fret over the cost or how to source it. Instead, she and her staff spend their time deciding which recipes to cook and how to market them to school-age kids.
"We're really proud about what we're doing, because we are featuring fish more often during the month," Emerson said. She has transported as much as 200 pounds of fish at a time in her Toyota Prius.
On offer that day were fish tacos with shredded napa cabbage, pineapple salsa and a tangy Greek yogurt sauce on a whole grain tortilla, served with a side of cilantro lime rice and lentil stew.
"It's good. It really is," said Westbrook High School senior Temperance Overby. "It's better with the yogurt sauce they had drizzled on top of it."
Another senior, Mady Worcester, said she doesn't eat much fish outside school but opted for the taco, enticed by the pineapple salsa. "It just looked good today," she said, and reported that it was.
Some kitchen staff members at schools receiving the free fillets are unaccustomed to handling and preparing raw fish. The Gulf of Maine Research Institute, a Portland nonprofit whose work includes a project to help more schools across New England serve local seafood, is one organization that holds trainings for food service staff.
"They get to look at the fish, touch the fish, cut the fish, try [different species] next to each other," said Sophie Scott, the institute's sustainable seafood program manager, "and then make really simple recipes that they can taste themselves."
The Gulf of Maine Research Institute also develops classroom curricula to teach students about the local fish they're eating, and it holds tastings for students to give feedback on new recipes, such as Iraqi Seven Spiced Fish and Buffalo Fish Dip.
Scott said students approve of the fare more often than not. "It's not the kids who we have to convince around getting fish on the menu," she said. "It's really the adults."
Some schools have had so much success serving fish that they've begun working with the Maine Coast Fishermen's Association to buy fish from local distributors, giving districts the flexibility to choose what kind of fish they get, when they get it and whether to have it delivered.
The association has also been developing ready-to-serve products using local fish, such as fish cakes and sweet potato pollock soup, which schools can buy at a discount thanks to a state program that gives partial reimbursements for local food purchases.
A lifeline for local fishermen
Though Maine may be known for its lobster, groundfishing dates back to Colonial America.
But by the 1990s, overfishing and other factors had led to the collapse of several groundfish species in New England waters. Groundfish populations in the Gulf of Maine, which stretches from Nova Scotia to Massachusetts, are still recovering, in part due to the fact that the gulf is warming faster than almost all the world's oceans.
The once-booming industry in Maine is now in decline. Fuel and operating costs have risen, federal quotas limit how much of a species can be landed and locally caught fish sold in grocery stores competes with sometimes cheaper alternatives from Iceland and Norway.
"It's a well-managed fishery in many ways, but it's a lot of burden on the boats," said Hudson, of the Maine Coast Fishermen's Association. "The overhead just keeps getting worse on everything, from quota costs to fuel and ice and crew and food — everything."
Hudson estimates there were more than 300 fishing boats landing in Portland in the 1990s, but now there are just around 20. Those who remain are subject to a volatile fish market that can make it hard to turn a profit.
Campbell, the Boothbay fisherman, recalls one trip he worked in 2023 when fish prices were so low that the crew wasn't even paid. "I just remember that we didn't make any money," he said. "I didn't make any money for three days of work."
That has improved thanks in part to Fishermen Feeding Mainers, which Hudson says is benefiting people all along the local groundfishing supply chain.
"You're helping boats go fishing that are catching fish cleanly in a well-managed way. It's a high-quality fish. You're allowing the processors onshore to get some business," Hudson said. "And then you're providing really high-quality [fish] — probably the healthiest protein out there — to the food insecure and schoolchildren."
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