About the Local Fish Project

Connecting communities to local seafood — starting at the source.

Local Fish is a public benefit project rooted in San Diego’s working waterfront. Our mission is to reconnect chefs, consumers, and communities with local, responsibly caught seafood — while uplifting the independent fishermen who make it all possible.

We’re not a company or a marketplace. We’re an initiative that exists to make local seafood visible, valued, and viable.

Why We Exist

For too long, California’s small-boat fishermen have been pushed to the margins — despite harvesting some of the most sustainable seafood in the world. Much of it leaves our ports unnoticed, shipped overseas or sold under generic labels. Meanwhile, local chefs and consumers rarely have access to what’s caught just offshore.

The Local Fish Project was created to change that.

What We Do

We help bridge the gap between fishermen and their communities by offering tools, resources, and connections that bring local seafood back to the table.

For fishermen, we help amplify your story, showcase your catch, and connect you with local buyers. For chefs, we support sourcing that’s seasonal, traceable, and rooted in real relationships. For the community, we offer a window into the people, places, and traditions behind San Diego’s local seafood.

This Is a Living Project

Local Fish is always evolving. We’re building momentum through storytelling, direct relationships, community events, and a growing network of collaborators who care about the future of our coast.

Join The Project

“Join us in reimagining the seafood system — one dock, one fish, and one connection at a time. Local Fish is an innovative networking platform that connects local fishermen with buyers, including restaurants, chefs, and merchants. We facilitate connections, ensure transparency, and support responsible fishing practices. Through our platform, customers can discover a variety of locally sourced fish and make informed choices about their seafood purchases. Chefs can easily access a diverse range of local species, creating menus that celebrate the seasons and support responsible sourcing. For fishermen, Local Fish streamlines the process of showcasing their catch, establishing a strong presence in the community, and connecting with industry buyers, all while accessing valuable resources to enhance their business operations. Join us in transforming the seafood industry, starting from the source, and together, let’s create a more sustainable and thriving seafood community in San Diego.” – A message from our founders

Our Story

The Local Fish was created with a purpose: to narrow the divide between fishers and the community they serve.

What started as one fisherman’s daughter’s quest to deliver the freshest possible catch has expanded into a grassroots mission to revolutionize the industry from the inside out. Tanner Saraspe and Connie Winterstein connected at the intersection of commercial fishing and fisheries science over a shared vision for a transparent local seafood industry.

Tanner is the founder and manager of a small-scale seafood distribution company that works exclusively with local and sustainable partners, including her family’s fleet of vessels in San Diego. Connie specializes in natural resources management and has a background in fisheries science. Together they sketched a blueprint for a system that could transform outdated industry standards and optimize community accessibility to quality seafood. In 2021 Local Fish (LF) was launched and pushed off the dock thanks to initial funding support from NOAA.

Local Fish is an innovative networking platform that connects local fishermen with buyers, including restaurants, chefs, and merchants. We facilitate connections, ensure transparency, and support responsible fishing practices. Through our platform, customers can discover a variety of locally sourced fish and make informed choices about their seafood purchases. Chefs and other buyers can easily access a diverse range of local species, creating menus that celebrate the seasons and support responsible sourcing. For fishermen, Local Fish streamlines the process of showcasing their catch, establishing a strong presence in the community, and connecting with industry buyers, all while accessing valuable resources to enhance their business operations.

Join us in transforming the seafood industry, starting from the source, and together, let’s create a more sustainable and thriving seafood community in San Diego. We’re on a mission to narrow the divide between locally-landed seafood and the community. We want to work together to disrupt existing food systems and create a new framework in which our community buoys fishing operations resulting in a viable and sustainable fishing industry.

Our Team

Tanner Saraspe Project Co-Founder, Fisheries & Program Development Director

Tanner provides oversight, creativity, mastery, and supervision over all aspects of Local Fish with the goal of supporting local and regional economies through preserving the livelihoods of local fishermen and supporting our working waterfront. Tanner is a true born and raised San Diego girl. After earning a degree in neuroscience from the University of San Diego, she decided to carry on the family tradition and breathe new life into the local fishing industry. Tanner started Saraspe Seafoods, a small-scale distribution company focused on local and fully-traceable products, as a 21 year old fresh out of college. Her growing awareness of the need for methods to improve quality and efficiency in the marketplace sparked the fire that brought the Local Fish to life. Tanner comes to LF with a broad range of experience, having worked as a manager of a fish processing plant, steering committee member of San Diego Food System Alliance, director of San Diego Fisherman's Working Group, and founder of Saraspe Seafoods. Her first trip offshore was at two-days old on her dad’s lobster boat – she knows her way around a fishing boat.

Connie Winterstein Project Co-Founder, Strategic Development Advisor

Connie provides operations and programmatic oversight of LF, including strategic planning, operations, and developing processes and systems. She has over 15 years of experience driving operations and managing projects from the ground up. Her diverse background includes working with the private sector, U.S. government, as well as non profit organizations. Connie has acquired and managed grant awards with a portfolio exceeding $60 million over her career. Her experience includes collaborating with fishing industry representatives to analyze environmental impacts from select fisheries in Hawaii; funded by NOAA. Connie received her M.S. in Natural Resources Management from the University of Hawaii, Manoa and her undergraduate degree from UC San Diego. Raised in southern California, Connie has fond memories of heading to the Dory Fishing Fleet and Market in Newport Beach on weekends with her family to purchase fresh seafood from fishermen. Seeing her father develop relationships with the fishermen stuck with her over the years and she understood that food doesn’t just come from a grocery aisle and local, high-quality seafood is not only important, but delicious.

Nicole Litvack Marketing & Community Engagement Consultant

Nicole is a San Diego-based food editor and writer. Born into a third-generation fishing family, her deep love and appreciation for local food systems sparked an interest in gastronomy that led to a lifelong career in and around the kitchen. After earning a degree in English Literature from the University of California, Irvine, she went on to pursue a professional degree from The New School of Cooking in Los Angeles, as well as a food styling certification from The Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Nicole has overseen the launch of several web-based marketing campaigns, worked on the creation of eight cookbooks, and managed a multi-platform content marketing publication for a major US grocery store. Nicole will help capture the stories and recipes embedded in our local community to expand awareness around local catch.

Kate Fitzgerald Program Operations Manager

Kate Fitzgerald brings a diverse background in fisheries management, marine policy, and science communication to her role as Program Operations Manager at the Local Fish Project. She leads day-to-day program coordination, supports strategic storytelling, and helps bridge the gap between local fishermen, chefs, and community members across San Diego. Originally from Fort Collins, Colorado, Kate’s passion for the ocean led her to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she earned a B.S. in Marine Sciences. Her early career included marine mammal rescue, rehabilitation, and research before she pursued a Master of Advanced Studies in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. During her time at Scripps, Kate explored fisheries management, ocean law, environmental economics, and project design. She interned with the California Fish and Game Commission and completed a capstone project examining chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery. Her work is grounded in a systems-thinking approach and a deep commitment to ocean sustainability. Alongside her marine science work, Kate brings over a decade of restaurant industry experience and a strong appreciation for local food systems. She also holds a minor in Fine Arts with a focus on dance and remains active in the San Diego arts community as an instructor at Drip Creative Studio. Kate is passionate about creating connection, elevating the stories of local fishermen, and expanding access to responsibly sourced seafood in coastal communities.

Sarah Saraspe Outreach and Supply Chain Specialist

Sarah brings over 20 years of experience in the fish handling and processing business. In 2003, Sarah founded Five Star Fish Processing based in Point Loma where she serviced the San Diego fleet. The Point Loma sportfishing fleet is one of the largest in the world. Sarah’s business reinvented the way fish was preserved before landing at the docks through Refrigerated Saltwater System (RSW) technology. This system allowed fish to remain fresh, never frozen, and processed immediately. Her business received and processed over 800 tons of fish annually and processed an average of 15,000 pounds of fish per day during peak season. Sarah now works with Saraspe Seafoods as a purchasing and delivery coordinator and quality control specialist. Her role includes providing support for outreach activities, conducting research on the San Diego seafood supply chain system, and advising on quality control methods.