Shellfish Association seeks Nantucket bay scallop logo

INDEPENDENT FILE PHOTO A bowl of freshly shucked Nantucket bay scallops. Seafood aficionados ordering their favorites such as Alaskan king crab, Chesapeake Bay oysters and Maine lobster know what to ask for when they go out to eat.

Harvesters of these fish branded and popularized their catch through marketing campaigns.

The name "Nantucket Bay Scallops" is recognized at high-end restaurants across the country such as Wolfgang Puck's in Beverly Hills, Spago, Shaw's Crab House in Chicago, and at specialty supermarkets including Balducci's at 6th Ave. and 10th St. in New York City.

But that recognition happens through trusting in their wholesalers, including Connolly Fish of Boston, Mass. and M.F. Foley Fish Co. of New Bedford, Mass. Both wholesalers market Nantucket's tastiest product nationwide based on its unique sweetness and taste. And, they sell the Nantucket scallops without a logo proving authenticity.

Since there are unscrupulous wholesalers and fishermen who claim their scallops are from Nantucket waters, while they are not, the Nantucket Shellfish Association is designing a logo that it hopes island fishmongers will put on their containers before shipping them to the mainland. The logo would verify that the scallops were grown in Nantucket Bay and protect against the devaluation of Nantucket commercial scallopers' catch. Nantucket Shellfish Association president Whitey Willauer said he hopes to have the design and stickers printed in time for the opening of the 2009/2010 commercial scallop season on Nov. 3.

"I think that it's appropriate if we can, [but] I think we're going to have to ramp up on this because not everybody will want to put them on initially," said Willauer. "And then we've got to get the various wholesalers to put the brand on whatever scallops they ship off island. Maybe they can put the labels in their display cases, which would be helpful, to get people thinking about this.

"The whole thing is to get people to realize that we have the only surviving population of bay scallops in the country."

NSA member Melanie Kotolac, who is guiding the creation of the trademark for "Nantucket Bay Scallops," said the logo is being designed by Nantucket artist Howard Fraker. Fraker is making a wood carving that will include a scallop shell, the outline of the island and the words, Nantucket, bay and scallops. After being photographed, the original work will be digitized and printed onto stickers that the NSA is hoping island seafood store owners, independent shippers and scallopers themselves will use to identify their product.

Glidden's Island Seafood owner David Glidden, though cognizant of the reasoning behind NSA's trademark logo effort, said sellers of Nantucket scallops are already using the word "Nantucket" in marketing their bay scallops, but that just because a product bears the name Nantucket, such as Nantucket Nectars or Pepperidge Farm Nantucket Cookies, does not guarantee that they are made on the island. He added that because Nantucket scallops are typically shipped in bulk to wholesalers who then put them into other containers, depending on who is buying what quantity, the Shellfish Association would have to ensure the application of logo stickers on all containers right up to restaurant or fish store to make this work.

"When they get to the wholesale level, they sell them to a place in a bag or in a container, then they go to a restaurant, so they're not going to go into a little container," said Glidden. "I don't know as a logo would make sense as an awareness for the consumer."

But Willauer and the NSA are steadfast in their belief that buyers of Nantucket bay scallops should know where their shellfish is coming from.

"It's that kind of thing we want to stress and we want to get it on menus. It's to differentiate us from sea scallops [and bay scallops from Chinese scallops]," said Willauer. I