[Stuart Carlton]
Teach me about the Great Lakes. Teach me about the Great Lakes. Welcome back to Teach Me About the Great Lakes, a twice monthly podcast in which I, a Great Lakes novice, ask people who are smarter and harder working than I am to teach me all about the Great Lakes.

My name is Stuart Carlton, and I know a lot about the insults of aging. Waking up with random body parts hurting that didn't hurt the day before for absolutely no reason. I can barely move my shoulder.

I tried to put on deodorant. It was like a reach. It was like, so I'm more deodorized on this side.

But I don't know a lot about the Great Lakes, and that's the point of this here show. I'm joined today, you heard her, the one, the only, Megan, the lake lover gun, Megan.

[Megan Gunn]
Hi, Stuart.

[Stuart Carlton]
Hello. We're also joined today by Nattie Morrison. Nattie is the communication coordinator for Illinois Indiana Sea Grant.

[Natty Morrison]
Well, let me communicate something to you.

[Stuart Carlton]
It's a pleasure to be here. We don't have time for that, though.

It is time for Ask Megan. That's right. We'd like to kick off our show with Ask Megan, everybody's favorite segment.

And so this comes from the great Rachel, the great Rachel. And the great Rachel wants to know, Megan, the lake lover gun, are you more of a cat person or a catfish person?

[Megan Gunn]
I'm definitely more of a catfish person.

[Stuart Carlton]
More of a catfish person.

[Megan Gunn]
I love dogs.

Cats are something about the sneakiness or them wanting to be your friend, but also not wanting to be your friend, that really just be my friend.

[Stuart Carlton]
You're a cat guy?

[Natty Morrison]
I am a cat guy. I mean, I like, yes, I do.

I have a perfect little cat. I grew up with cats. I'm very afraid of dogs often.

But as I've gotten older, I was probably like 22 when I was like, oh, when dogs bark, it's not because they're mad at me. It's because that's how the only way they can communicate. And if I'm being honest, it wasn't 22.

It was like 30, probably. It was like every time a dog barked to me, I was like, oh, what do they do? And I was like, oh, he's just saying hi.

[Megan Gunn]
So when dogs look at you, like when they stare at you, they're telling you that they love you. When cats stare at you, they're plotting.

[Natty Morrison]
No, I don't think my cat, the way my cat looks at me, she doesn't know. When she plots, I'm not around. She's like, you know, that's the sneakiness of it.

[Megan Gunn]
You've just got a special cat, a special good cat, not like the rest of the cats that are special and they are plotting all the time.

[Natty Morrison]
I think all of our listeners, pets, whether they're cats or catfish or dogs or dogfish are all special.

[Megan Gunn]
In their own ways.

[Natty Morrison]
Yes.

[Stuart Carlton]
If you'd like to send a question to Ask Megan at the top of our show, teach me about the Great Lakes at gmail.com. And I think I've got the forwarding worked out again, so I should get your email. But who knows?

Sometimes that kind of craps out. Excellent. Well, we have an exciting show for you today.

We're going to talk with somebody about using not just 1%, not just 2%, not just 3%, not just 4%, not just 5%, not just, but 100% of the fish. Turns out, Natty, we're not using nearly enough of the fish that we catch.

[Natty Morrison]
I can't wait to find out.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, me either. Well, let's bring on our guest right after this theme song. Our guest today is John Schmidt.

John is the program manager of the 100% Great Lakes Fish Initiative with the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governor's and Premier's Program, or as people call it, the GSGP Program. The GSGPP. John, how are you today?

Thanks for coming on.

[John Schmidt]
Great. Thank you so much for having me.

[Stuart Carlton]
Excellent. So we're going to start. We're going to go into detail, but something we're going to start now is because we've learned that the listener curve, like with each minute of any show, not just ours, has to go down.

So we're going to start with our lightning round. In 60 seconds or less, oh, I should have a sound effect, but I don't. Tell us what is the 100% Fish Initiative and why people should care, and then we'll go into detail.

[John Schmidt]
Sure. So most people, when they think of fish, they think of the fillet, right? But the idea behind 100% Great Lakes Fish is that a fish isn't a fillet or not just a fillet.

There's a number of other products that can be made from the different components of the fish. Right now, roughly 40% of the fish is used for the meat that we know and love, whitefish, walleye, perch, etc. But that remaining 60% is often landfilled or sent to other low-value uses.

So what the 100% Great Lakes Fish Initiative tries to do is find other ways to valorize, make this 60% that's considered waste and treat it more like raw material to come up with new economic development uses and environmentally friendly approaches there.

[Stuart Carlton]
Nailed it. All right, everybody, you can turn off the show. That was awesome.

Okay, now let's go into detail. So the idea here is that they're right, that we're only using maybe the most notable people part of the fish, but only a small part of the fish. There's a lot that's getting thrown away.

How did people first become aware of this, right? Because it seems like a fairly mindless thing to just use the fish for the meat and then pitch it. Is this a recent phenomenon?

[John Schmidt]
That's a really good question. I mean, historically, and we work with tribes around the region, a great deal on this 100% fish work. Historically, folks have taken that waste not, want not approach where, okay, maybe they're using the bones of the fish for needles, or they're drying the heads and using it for soups or whatever the case may be.

Historically, also the skin for leather, but as intensive food, as the food industry has grown up in the last century or so, you see more of a specialization and focus. Okay, we're going to catch these fish, we're going to process them, we're going to cut off the fillets and everything else is lower value. So it's going to the landfill.

In kind of the modern sense, when this really got up and rolling was about in the 1980s, where Iceland pioneered this new wave of 100% fish, they saw significant decreases in their Icelandic cod stock, which they rely on. It's a big part of the economy of Iceland, which is historically a fishing island. And they started to think, okay, well, we need to make more money, but we're catching less fish.

How do we do that? And this idea of 100% fish was born. So there's a lot more to that, but I'll leave you with that at first.

[Megan Gunn]
So a lot of people, when I think about just throwing my trash away, I don't have really any expenses outside of paying the bill that goes to getting the trash can moved to the other places that it goes to. But it's expensive taking things to the landfill. So it's like, how expensive is it to dispose of these, I guess, now resources that aren't being used?

[John Schmidt]
Great question. We recently completed an economic and environmental benefits analysis for 100% fish here in the region. And we found that disposal costs are roughly $295 Canadian per ton of this fish waste or byproduct.

So that adds up and millions of dollars per year across the industry in terms of dumping costs. They call it a tipping fee. So it might seem small in an individual circumstance, but in aggregate, it's quite a bit of money.

And you hear this when we put boots on the ground and talk with processors and fisher people from all around the region. The landfilling cost is not nothing.

[Megan Gunn]
That is extremely pricey.

[Stuart Carlton]
So GSGP is binational. So you're looking at fisheries companies or fishing companies in the US and in Canada. Is that right?

How big even is that industry? Because in Indiana, we have no commercial fishery. But I think we're rare.

[John Schmidt]
Yep. OK. A couple of things there.

So our organization, GSGP, works on behalf of the 10 chief executives of the region. So those are the governors from Minnesota to New York, as well as the premiers of Ontario and Quebec. And you can think of them as the Canadian equivalent of governors.

And so it's everybody who touches either the Great Lakes or the St. Lawrence River as the lakes flow out to the Atlantic Ocean. And the fishing industry here is split up into a number of different parts, and it's pretty well spread out geographically, as you would imagine. On the commercial side, those places where those fish are landed, it's right next to the lakes, right?

They're fishing from the lakes. But there's also a growing aquaculture industry here in our region, which are primarily land-based. So these are up in northern Wisconsin or up in northern Indiana or southern Illinois, et cetera.

There are people who are farming these fish. And they have some of the same... It's, of course, different from the commercial side, but they do share some of the same characteristics and similarly have a problem with this fish waste raw material.

So while there might not be big commercial fishing in Indiana, there's certainly a fish presence. And I should also say the sport fish industry is also a great source for this material.

[Stuart Carlton]
Oh, really? So like working with individual consumer anglers, I guess, both in terms of the charter captain industry and then with individual people. Interesting.

[John Schmidt]
Yeah, less with individuals, but more, you know, there are these cleaning stations set up around the region where anglers process, and then that's kind of a collection hub.

[Megan Gunn]
Okay.

[Stuart Carlton]
Interesting. So there's a real big opportunity.

How much...

[Natty Morrison]
Yeah, how much in terms of... There's a lot of different audiences that you're obviously, and stakeholders and sort of players in this that you're having to sort of engage with.

How is that different when you're trying to pitch this or when you're trying to help coordinate this with these different sort of groups who maybe have different pain points or different needs? How does that work?

[John Schmidt]
Sure. Well, I'd say a least common denominator here is the pain point of what do I do with my waste? And that's really what we're focused on.

So that makes working across these relatively easier. Of course, the industries do look a little bit different. The commercial fishing side is in general, not in every instance, but more of a traditional industry than say aquaculture, which has often a lot of technology involved.

They got recirculation pumps and et cetera, et cetera. So the industries look a little bit different, but everybody's got a waste problem. And if we can turn something that was a cost center into something that is maybe in the first instance, a break even proposition.

And then as we continue to move this down the line, something that actually makes quite a significant amount of money, that's what we'd like to see.

[Stuart Carlton]
Look, I want to get into the specific products and types of things that people might make out of this. But first, I think you're talking to a big issue, which is how do we make this happen? So thinking about it, if I'm a commercial fisher or an aquaculture producer, all right, and so I go and I catch a fish, I catch many fish.

[Natty Morrison]
And if you catch only one, you're not gonna, we're not talking to you.

[Stuart Carlton]
And then I go home and I'm sad. But let's assume that I catch many fish.

So, and then I get the fillets, turn those into, I don't know, fish sticks or smoked cod or well, probably not cod. Anyway, the point is I make my products. And then I've got this other 60% of the fish.

You got to do something with that. You would probably have to, is it profitable to do that on an individual scale or do you need to aggregate across a number of people?

[John Schmidt]
So the beauty with the 100%, great question. The beauty with the 100% fish approach is that there are opportunities kind of at all levels of this value chain. So let's take the example of somebody we work with, Joe Manthei, he owns Fisker Leather up in Minnesota.

He makes fish leather. So what he did at the beginning, and I think still does from time to time is, he'll go catch a fish or he'll get a side of salmon from Costco. He'll cut the skin off.

He'll eat the fillet of the fish. And then he'll tan that into leather. He has a shop online, it's fiskerleather.com if I'm not mistaken. And that's something that he can do on an individual basis in his backyard with a bucket, tanning this, putting it into crafts, making a wallet. I've got one right here. It's the first step.

[Megan Gunn]
This is really cool.

[Stuart Carlton]
Whoa, look at that, that's a wallet eye.

[John Schmidt]
Yeah, and he sells all sorts of stuff. On an individual basis, he does source skins from other producers around the region now.

But that's something that can be done small scale. Similarly, compost, folks put this into their compost, make fish, pretty much exclusive compost that can be done on an individualized basis or also with a whole bunch of people's fish waste that they either produce from their processing outfit or home use or whatever the case may be. So those represent kind of that easy to do, relatively easier to do as an individual.

And then you start moving up the value chain.

[Stuart Carlton]
Individual people or businesses can do that. They can soak their own fish, not soak their own fish, they can leather their own fish.

[John Schmidt]
What kind of fish do you eat?

[Stuart Carlton]
It's the one fish I caught, man.

[Natty Morrison]
Have you had fish before? Have you seen one?

I'm starting to doubt.

[Stuart Carlton]
Right, so the fish is walking across the... All right, all right.

But I mean, if you really wanna make a difference, so it's gotta be bigger scale than that, right? I mean, because fish leather isn't gonna get us the other 60% of enough fish, I wouldn't think. So like, as they're talking about like building, how do you take this to scale?

Like, do you need new facilities? Do you need like a processing? What kind of stuff might you need?

[John Schmidt]
Good question. So as you move up the value chain, the initial investment needed often grows, but the potential upside also grows. So for example, Iceland has a huge industry around fish collagen, the most popular soda in Iceland.

It's like their version of Red Bull is made with fish collagen. It's like an energy drink.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, it's not. That can't be true. Are you serious? Have you had this?

[John Schmidt]
Yeah, oh yeah, many times. It's called CoLab. You can buy it online.

It's pretty expensive because I think it ships from Iceland, but if you're ever on the ground there, it's a couple of bucks a can. It's pretty good.

[Megan Gunn]
I wish I had known this a few years ago.

[Stuart Carlton]
We're getting some of that.

[Natty Morrison]
Do they, hold on a second. Do they, are they leading with that?

They're like, this is that cola you've heard of. This is the one with the fish. Or is it like, it's part of it because it works and then they're like, it's in the background.

[John Schmidt]
I mean, it says it right on the can. In pretty big letters too. I think as a culture, like I mentioned before, this is a fishing culture.

They grew up around this. Everybody knows a fisherman or a boat captain or somebody who works in processing or whatever. So I think maybe they're desensitized to the things that might make some people here think, oh, I'm drinking fish.

That's weird. I mean, you can't taste it at all. It's one of the component parts.

People who take collagen here in the US, it's often bovine or porcine collagen. It's not like you think your protein shake in the morning tastes like pigs. So, yeah.

[Megan Gunn]
Okay. So this seems like it could get really smelly really fast, especially if we are like mass congregating a lot of fish to make all these products. How does one keep them from decomposing after they have just collected the fillets?

[John Schmidt]
Sure. So these processing facilities, I mean, they're beautiful. If you ever get the chance to do a walkthrough, I'd really recommend it.

And pretty high tech. Everything is kept, of course, in a temperature safe environment. There's a lot of refrigeration and chilling happening.

So some folks then put their discard scraps from the fish into the refrigerator or elsewhere. So that really does help to control the smell and also the decomposition of that material, of course.

[Megan Gunn]
Okay. That makes sense to me. Thank you.

[Natty Morrison]
And I hope that we already covered this. So what are the... It's more silly.

Are we talking like fish heads, fish gut? Like what are the parts other than the fillet that are being made that we're disposing of? or trying to not...

[John Schmidt]
Sure. You know, heads, frames, racks, bones, the viscera. It's called the offal. That's the technical term for it.

All of these things contain all sorts of nutrients, different products that then can be transformed into other finished goods. One good example of this, or at least fun anecdote, was we first kicked this off after some conversations in Iceland. And one of our main points of contact there, Thor Sigfusson, who started the Iceland Ocean Cluster, kind of 100% fish movement.

He was doing a walkthrough of several facilities with us here in the Great Lakes. So I drove him all the way from Toronto up to Traverse City. And I forget which facility we were in, but he leans down.

There's this bucket of fish guts there with his bare hands. Maybe the six, seven guy named Thor from Iceland.

[Stuart Carlton]
Six, seven.

[John Schmidt]
Yeah, imposing guy. He reaches down, picks up this handful of fish guts and says, this is the most valuable part of the fish. I can't believe we're throwing this away.

So it's a lot of benefit.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, that is amazing.

[Natty Morrison]
And I was hoping that you were going to be like, and he just ate. And he just took a big bite of it and said, love it.

Because that's a part of like, I guess I don't, it seems like the whole fish is, especially if it's full of nutrients, it might not be edible, like palatable necessarily. But it seems like, you know, maybe we should just be, maybe there should be, this is a way of like getting people to just eat more of the fish, I guess.

[Stuart Carlton]
Or use more, consume more, maybe not just eating it, right?

Because you're not eating. I mean, unless you're having the CoLab energy drink, official slogan, come taste the offal. That's not actually the slogan.

That'd be good. But to use it in different ways, right? No, I hear that.

But so I want to refocus on thinking about the pledge, or the initiative and what y'all are doing in the pledge. Because again, well, actually, so here's my background, or here's my thought on this is, I do a lot of work on invasive species. And one thing that kind of frankly irritates me about invasive species is when people talk about, just turn them into a food and that will take care of the problem.

Because I don't think that literally in the history of the world has anybody ever eaten away an invasive species. Humans are good, but the reason that invasive species are invasive are because they can outstrip our ability to reduce it as a general rule. And so I love hearing these individual stories, but to me, like if, and the reason you get the 10 states and provinces involved are to think even bigger than like a dude with a bucket of offal.

And so I think you gotta be bringing in businesses, you gotta be working like large level. And so that's why I was excited to see the pledge. So why don't you tell us about the pledge and then about the movement to like how do you get all these companies working, potentially competitors working together, if that makes sense?

[John Schmidt]
Oh yeah, okay. There's probably 10 different questions in there. So sorry, all good ones.

No, no, no. So in terms of the thinking here, if you wanna start 100% fish movement, you need several different things. First, you need that baseline kind of research and understanding of what it looks like on the ground here in our region.

We're really lucky to be working with the Iceland folks, but of course, Iceland is not the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence region. It's totally different. So identifying, okay, what are our main species in terms of commercial catch?

Also, by catch, other species that are plentiful here in the region. Okay, we have that whitefish, for example. Let's put it under the microscope.

We'll send it to the scientists. They're gonna find out what this fish is made out of, what it's particularly high in, what it's low in. And that helps inform what some of the final products could be.

So let's say the whitefish has a large, I'm just making this up, but large swim bladder. And the swim bladder can be used for Y, then that informs the outcome. So we spent a number of years putting together this foundational research and material, identifying what potential products could be created, et cetera.

So that's one component you need. Another one is a good group of people who share the same values and kind of vision forward for this work. So with that, we created the 100% Great Lakes Fish Pledge.

We're now up to 44 signatories representing folks on the commercial fishing side, aquaculture. We just opened it up for 2026 to start bringing in sport fish cleaning stations. We've also had other folks like the Fisker Leather that I talked about, several firms that are making dog treats out of Great Lakes fish.

So it gives you a sense that this is a big ecosystem, right? It's not just the folks going out there fishing. It's not just the processors, but it's all along these different fisheries value chains.

So that's another piece you need. So once you have this receptive audience who's on your side, you're all pushing in the same direction. You have this underlying research, so you're not just taking a stab in the dark.

Then you can start to think, okay, what are these bigger plays beyond just doing fish leather in your backyard or composting the off cuts of the Red Snap or you got a Costco or whatever? You have to start thinking bigger. Things like fish meal and oil, that's something we've really been focused on recently.

These are effectively rendering plants where you have one input, which is this fish raw material, and you have two outputs, both of which are commodities, fish meal and fish oil. Collagen kind of falls into this same category. Those facilities are pretty expensive to build, so it's not one that we've been as focused on.

Biodigestion, these big plays are really important because the way that I see it is that they can be the engine that pulls the rest of this 100% fish initiative and movement in the region forward. If you have something that can take a majority of that waste, turn it into something valuable immediately, that's great. Then as, let's say, the skins become more valuable because we're using them for collagen or leather or the scales because we're turning them into something else, those can be removed from the input, so they're not going into the meal and oil facility.

They're not going into the collagen facility. They're being pulled off and something else is happening with them. That meal and oil facility or other large play can be the engine that pulls the rest of this forward, but you need kind of an anchor tenant there.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, no, that sounds great. And so what I'm hearing is essentially you're just trying to use what we have more efficiently because some fisheries are well-managed, some fisheries are in need of better management, but when you're throwing away what might be the most valuable part of the fish, or even if it's not literally the most valuable or very valuable part, it's just super inefficient, right? And it sounds like there's just environmental and economic wins to come from this.

[John Schmidt]
Your point underlines one of the figures that the Iceland Ocean Cluster, those pioneers of 100% fish talk about a lot. In their geography, a single Icelandic cod that used to be worth about 12 bucks wholesale value can now generate over $5,000 in terms of combined value of all the things that can be made from that fish. That's not saying each cod is now worth $5,000, but if you fully maximized its value with all things that can be created from that cod today, it's, you know, the results are staggering.

So I'd love to see something like that happen here and that's what we're working on.

[Stuart Carlton]
We're going to take a break. And when we come back, John is going to give us his top three end uses of the other 60% of the fish. You may have mentioned them, but we want to hear the official top three.

We'll do that when we come back on Teach Me About the Great Lakes. Welcome back to Teach Me About the Great Lakes. We're talking with John Schmidt, program manager of the 100% Great Lakes Fish Initiative with the GFGP, the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers. And John has been talking to us about trying to use more of the fish that we catch. And he is right now going to give us his top three, top three end uses of the other 60% of the fish. Now, John, I'm going to tell you how this is going to work.

So what we're going to do is we are going to say the number three thing is, and then we're going to do a drum roll and you're going to say it. And then there's going to be a cymbal crash or something. This always works out perfectly.

It's never awkward with the guests. So don't worry about it. It'll be totally fine.

All right. And then I will simulate the drum roll just for verisimilitude. All right.

So the number three favorite use, end use of the other 60% of the fish is, this is a drum roll. Oh.

[John Schmidt]
Compost.

[Stuart Carlton]
You see, there it is. All right. There was a cymbal crash.

Megan did the cymbal crash early too. That's what I mean. Everybody wants the cymbal crash before they say the thing.

Anyway, John, what do you got? Tell me about compost with fish.

[John Schmidt]
Yeah, so I should preface this by saying it's hard to narrow it down. We've identified, you know, a dozen or more different opportunities, done quite a bit of prototyping. So narrowing it down to just three is tough.

But I really like compost because, as I mentioned earlier, it can be done both on a relatively small scale up to as big as you want to make it. This has a number of benefits. Not only do these nutrients return to the soil, but, you know, it's actually a pretty valuable resource.

And in places, especially in Ontario, for example, landfill space is really, really limited. And so anything that they can do to get material like this out of landfill, you know, it's something they want and good for them as a province. So compost, I really like.

I will give a quick plug to the Grand Traverse Bay Band up in Traverse City area of Michigan, who's got a compost project going on. They've really ramped it up over the last year or two years where they're doing compost from this kind of, you know, the physical fish off cuts and mixing that with soil. But they're also creating things like protein hydrolysate fertilizer, like a liquid fertilizer that's particularly valuable.

And they've been a real pioneer here in the region for that. So number three, compost.

[Megan Gunn]
The one year I use fish fertilizer in my garden, it bloomed. It was like, it was amazing. And then when I didn't use it, it was like.

[John Schmidt]
Well, you hear the stories about the pilgrims planting. You know, they were taught by the Native Americans to plant the fish carcass next to their corn or maize. And it really bloomed.

So it doesn't surprise me.

[Stuart Carlton]
There we go. So, so, yeah. So on that, if I want to do that now, I just got a new fence.

So my history with gardening is I stopped doing it because I got tired of fighting rabbits. We have rabbits rampant in my neighborhood. It's ridiculous.

And so I was like, forget it. I just don't care that much. And so I'll just go to the farmer's market and buy a nice tomato for my once a year caprese salad.

But my point is this, if I, though I'm super inspired by Megan, I want to go catch a fish and compost the part I don't eat. Like, is that going to have a stink issue or like, do I need to bury it underground? What do you think?

It seems smelly. Megan was talking about the stank earlier. Don't worry about it with my garden.

[John Schmidt]
Good question. So I'm not a professional composter.

Oh. But I was in the Peace Corps and we did have a compost project. So I speak from that experience.

Although we didn't compost fish. Basically, you take this rich, organic, you know, nutrient filled material like a fish carcass, for example. And you mix it with a carbon rich source like hay or dried leaves or twigs, things like that.

You churn that up, flip it every day or week or whatever the case may be. And it creates a really nutrient rich soil. If you're doing it with your one Costco, you know, fish skin, I wouldn't be too worried about the smell there.

But as you start to ramp it up, you know, citing as with any kind of compost or any industrial use, you know, you want to make sure you're citing it in the right place, et cetera.

[Stuart Carlton]
So, all right. Now, the number two, number two favorite use of the other 60% of the fish is drum roll.

[John Schmidt]
It's a tie between leather that I already talked about. So I won't go into that too much. And bait.

[Stuart Carlton]
Bait, bait. Tell me about using fish as bait, dead fish.

[John Schmidt]
Yeah. So there are a number of opportunities for bait. One that we've been particularly interested in is up in Northeastern Canada, where there's a pretty robust lobster and crab fishery.

Bait for those lobster and crab, particularly expensive. And they're looking at other ways to source bait and, you know, other things that they can use. So we're working on a trial right now, kind of a prototype of gizzard shad, which is in some of the lakes and in some areas a common bycatch to be used as gizzard shad.

And one of the nice things about this, of course, there's all sorts of complexities. It depends on the individual case. But, you know, there may be instances where, you know, fish that are plentiful in the lakes right now that are bycatch, you know, they're not targeted species, may be able to be used productively rather than just thrown back dead, for example, for bait.

So that's just one very specific example. But this is an emerging idea that we've been working on for the last six months to a year. And I think that there could be some real promise there.

[Stuart Carlton]
And now the number one most favoritist in the world, use of the other 60% of the fish, according to John Schmidt, fishery program manager at the Great Lakes, Great Lawrence Governors and Premiers, GSGB.

[John Schmidt]
Fish meal and oil. I touched on this briefly before, but, you know, that idea of an engine that can really pull the rest of this program and initiative and kind of 100% vision for the region forward. You've got to have a big volume play and meal and oil is really, really promising.

There are, we're not, you know, inventing something, cutting it out of whole cloth here. These types of facilities have existed or exist in other parts of the world, even other parts of the United States. And through our research, we've determined that there are, you know, sufficient quantities of this raw material to be, you know, accommodate a profitable fish meal and oil facility.

So we're working on some numbers right now and some business planning and trying to sketch that out. So we make sure we have a strong understanding going forward. So if you keep an eye on our website, gsgp.org, in the coming months, you'll see some exciting new news there. But meal and oil, you know, they're two commodities. They're very valuable in all sorts of industries. There's some real promise there.

It might not be the sexiest one, but I think it's really going to be good for the region.

[Stuart Carlton]
It really just depends on what you're using the oil for, I guess.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah. So I've used like fish oil, like taking them to supplements. Are there any regulatory hurdles that you have to bypass while like processing all these different uses?

[John Schmidt]
Yeah, it really depends what your end use is. If it's for human consumption, if it's for, you know, pet food, if it's for animal food, industrial use, et cetera. So, you know, kind of the most expensive where you get the biggest price premium is for things that are for human consumption.

That also takes a lot more labor going into it. Of course, you have those cold chains, which are maintained anyway, but, you know, really specific reporting that's, you know, time and capital intensive. I think for pet food in particular and aquaculture feed, things like that, it makes a lot of sense in that's where you'd start.

And then you see what the demand is and move up from there. But yeah, that Icelandic cod liver oil that I don't know if anybody else remembers that when they were a kid, their mom gave it to them on a spoon. You know, it's big business and supposedly good for you.

[Natty Morrison]
If our listeners are interested in getting involved, what would you say they can do to get started?

[John Schmidt]
Sure. Well, I'd recommend first and foremost, that everybody goes to our website.

That's www.gsgp.org. You can click on our projects and 100% fish is right there. All of the materials, you know, the reports and the research are posted under the resources section.

You know, everything we do is for the public. We're a 501C3 working on behalf of, you know, for the betterment of the region. So please do check those out.

We spend a lot of time taking that academic kind of report and jargon and turning it into something that a normal human being can read. So go in, check out some of those executive summaries. If you're involved in the fishing industry in one way or another, whether you're creating something from fish or, you know, a processor, commercial fisher person, aquaculture, et cetera, take a look at our 100% fish pledge and let me know if you'd like to be involved.

We've been doing a lot of outreach around the region, but it's kind of reached critical mass now. So we get people reaching out to us from time to time because they listen to podcasts like this, which I always really appreciate.

[Stuart Carlton]
Excellent. Well, John, this is really fascinating to hear you talk about the 100% fish initiative. And it seems like a really exciting thing to be involved with.

I like the idea of being more environmentally and economically efficient. I think that's super awesome. But that's actually not why we invited you here on teaching about the Great Lakes this week.

The reason that we invited you on teaching about the Great Lakes is to ask you two questions. The first one is this. If you could choose to have a great donut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which one would you choose?

[John Schmidt]
Easy. I'm not a donut guy. So definitely great sandwich.

[Stuart Carlton]
Perfect. I'm glad to have you answer to that because I know you're in Chicago or as I call it, Chi Town. OK, the second city, the Windy City.

[Natty Morrison]
Whoa, I've never heard it called that. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of my trademark that.

[Stuart Carlton]
So I'm going to.

And normally I ask the guests, isn't this just a lie? I'm like when I'm in, you know, BF, Minnesota, where can I get a good sandwich? And I'm never going to BF, Minnesota, but I'm going to Chicago quite often.

I'm going to go to Chicago and I'm going to go to get just an amazing sandwich. I could go to Al's, get myself a beef sandwich. That's good.

And eat it with Rini and use her napkin because she needs zero napkins and I need 48. But where might I go other than Al's to get just a great sandwich in Chi Town?

[John Schmidt]
Oh man, the list is endless. One, why would you go to Al's when you could go to Johnny's? Great Italian beef.

Best one in the city, in my opinion. There it is. Manny's Deli.

I don't know if you've ever been there. It's a Jewish deli over there on Jefferson and I forget what it's on, but a little bit on the west side of downtown. Great Jewish deli.

Get a pastrami on rye or equivalent. You'll always be happy. But my out of the box one, I would say go to a place in Chinatown.

It's called Xi'an Cuisine, like X-I-A-N, like the city of China. They do this. Oh man, I shouldn't be giving this one out because it'll be mob, but they do this flatbread.

It's kind of a Western Chinese style flatbread. They cut it open. They put this really nice stewed and spiced lamb in there, some vegetables, four bucks or something.

It's unbelievable.

[Megan Gunn]
Sounds delicious.

[Stuart Carlton]
And done. Maybe they'll cater our next meeting.

[Megan Gunn]
So my question for you is if you could tell us about a special place in the Great Lakes that you'd like to share with our audience and what makes it special?

[John Schmidt]
Great question. You know, on the fishing theme, I would say any working fishing port around you is just going to be such a treat to visit. It usually gets started early in the morning, but seeing people out there on the docks, loading up the boats, going out to fish and coming back, it's a really striking site.

And it reminds you that this fishing culture and industry has really existed, at least on the commercial side, has really existed in our region for a long, long time. And as part of the fabric of the Great Lakes, it's this water that brings us all together. It's why our organization works on water issues.

And I'd really recommend that head up to Fishtown in Leland. It's up in the Leland Peninsula in Michigan, lower, upper, lower peninsula. You know, it feels in some ways like you step back in time, all these little wooden businesses and shacks and houses right there on the water.

Huge commercial fishing happens up there. Also, sport fishing, et cetera. It's it's a site to behold, for sure.

[Megan Gunn]
Sounds beautiful.

[Natty Morrison]
Excellent.

[Stuart Carlton]
Well, John Schmidt, program manager of the 100% Great Lakes Fish Initiative at the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governor's and Premier's Program. GSGP for the real heads out there. GSGP.org.

Thank you so much for coming on and teaching us all about the Great Lakes. Yeah, thank you for having me. Well, that was a fascinating initiative. It's a fascinating initiative to hear about. And like I said before, it's always I like thinking about being more efficient with stuff because we're in an era where we, you know, need to do more with our resources. Boy, are we learning that at work.

So Megan, what's something you learned about the Great Lakes today?

[Megan Gunn]
I think one of the things that I learned is that there are so many uses for the rest of the fish that I just wasn't thinking about. I like I've used it for I've done stuff in compost and I've used to fertilize it, but I've never thought about putting it in medicine or putting it in beverages.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, just come for the northern lights. Yes. Stay for the awful beverage. Yeah.

[Natty Morrison]
And we shouldn't trash it. I mean, without trying it.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, O-F-F-A-L, different awful, the leftover bits of the fish, the awful.

[Megan Gunn]
It is actually the technical term.

[Natty Morrison]
Yeah, no, no, no. I'm saying like, oh, I see.

Because you're saying it's all.

[Stuart Carlton]
I just want to make sure. No, I was like a little play on words.

Yeah, yeah.

[Natty Morrison]
Do you think it would be gross?

[Stuart Carlton]
No, no.

So no, we're not trashing it. We're using the technical term to describe the drink, which also sounds like the word awful.

[Natty Morrison]
Yeah, yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
But no, I imagine it doesn't taste like fish at all. If it tasted like fish.

[Natty Morrison]
Well, I don't know.

I bet there's some people who are like, oh, man, why did they change it? Like I miss original.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, no, that Thomas would be that way.

There's no question. Thomas, if it tastes like fish, Thomas Hook, former director.

[Natty Morrison]
Yeah, you should try the original version.

Yeah, he's like, oh, yeah, you said that nice fish. That is fish forward flavor.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, I mean, I'll just like this is gross.

I drink the sometimes I sip the water out of the tuna can before I drain it.

[Megan Gunn]
That is gross. Thank you.

[Natty Morrison]
Is it gross? Is it? It's so it's like drinking the sea. I would say cut that out, but I know that we have to keep it in for.

[Stuart Carlton]
And there are people that probably here's a question, I'm just like, I'm like pouring and I go use one of those little cocktail straws, cocktail straws, stick it in there.

[Natty Morrison]
Oh, you mean like a big crazy like a.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, no, I'm not one of the little stir type.

[Natty Morrison]
Oh, I see. Yeah, no, no, no, no.

[Stuart Carlton]
We should get you a fish shaped like crazy strong to use for your tuna juice.

[Natty Morrison]
Oh, no, because that's a I mean, that's a one you straw.

And this is about efficiency. I'm not trying to get it. Once you get fish juice in a straw.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, that straw can never be used later for like a High-C. So I milk milk. Who's drinking milk through a crazy straw?

[Megan Gunn]
Milk children through a crazy straw. All the children.

[Natty Morrison]
Dude, there's just something maybe I guess. Yeah, I just it has been a while since I just drank a glass of milk.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah.

[Natty Morrison]
And that's just in a public. You kidding me? An adult man drinking a glass of milk is like the most insane like to be at a restaurant.

Be like, do I have a milk, please?

[Stuart Carlton]
It's like a milk. Chocolate! Yeah.

[Natty Morrison]
Be like that person. That person is going to he wears skin.

[Stuart Carlton]
Maybe fish skin.

Yes. Natty, what's something you learned about the Great Lakes today?

[Natty Morrison]
I think I was one thing I really learned and was hadn't considered was just how effective.

A pitch can be when you're able to calculate financial benefits like the benefits and the value props that that he was able to provide. I was like, that's a home run to everybody. And so it's really, really interesting the way that, you know, it's not even like they're trying to convince somebody of something or they're trying to, you know, sell them on something there.

You know, they're really passing along this information. And the financial and economic benefits seem like a win, win, win for me.

[Stuart Carlton]
No, that's totally true.

Although there is that convincing and selling that needs to be done. And I think that's part of it. Right.

[Natty Morrison]
But there's getting in the room with that.

[Stuart Carlton]
Right. Yeah, I think so.

Especially the businesses. I think there's a consumer story that still needs to be there.

[Natty Morrison]
Yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
But when they're focusing on oil and meal and stuff like that, then the consumer story is very different.

[Natty Morrison]
Right.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. Some people drink tuna juice, but for other people, sample for example, if anything,

[Natty Morrison]
I mean, when you have an oyster, like a raw oyster, there's a little bit of stuff in there to lick the shell. No, but I don't drain the juice and just eat the oyster.

[Stuart Carlton]
I like...

[Megan Gunn]
I'm so grossed out.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, but by the face, I guess so. But different people...

[Natty Morrison]
Are you serious? I thought y'all were like...

[Stuart Carlton]
Different people have different levels of comfort with that. And so I think there is a culture aspect of it. But I think by focusing on all these other pluses and by focusing on these industries at first, I think where the acceptance is much more economically driven.

I think you're right.

[Natty Morrison]
Absolutely.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yep.

[Megan Gunn]
Can I also add, when I was thinking about using fish leather for things, I was thinking of small fish. But if you get like a big fish, you can...

[Stuart Carlton]
That's what I mean. That's what I want on the wall. I want a big old...

I want Titus, if you're listening, to send me a big old salmon hide for my wall.

[Megan Gunn]
Yeah.

[Stuart Carlton]
I would put it up there.

[Megan Gunn]
Big lake sturgeon.

[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah.

The lake sturgeon season is starting right now in Michigan. They have like literally an hour long or something like a lake sturgeon season. They have one of these in Wisconsin too.

It's like literally just... I mean, it's very short. I mean, if you get a Titus, I want you to go and get a lake sturgeon.

And then if you do harvest one, I'm sure the one thing you want to do with the skin is tan it and send it to me.

[Natty Morrison]
It also seems like if we're trying to scale this up, it's unlikely... It's not like they're just going to be doing...

It wouldn't it be better to do multiple fish at one time? I'm saying if you get enough, you could do wall-to-wall fish leather in here. Oh my God, that would be great.

[Stuart Carlton]
It'd be a look. That's for sure.

[Natty Morrison]
I mean, people would be amazed.

[Stuart Carlton]
Teach Me About the Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois Indiana Sea Grant. We encourage you to check out the cool stuff we do at iicgrant.org and at ILIN Seagrant on Facebook, Blue Slide, and other social media.

[Natty Morrison]
Our senior producer is Carolyn Foley and Teach Me About the Great Lakes is produced by Megan Lake-Leopard-Gunn and Reggie Myles.

Ethan Chitty is our associate producer and fixer and our coordinating producer is Ava Hale. Our super fun podcast artwork is by Joel Davenport. The show is edited by Sandra Svoboda.

[Megan Gunn]
If you have a question or a comment about the show, please email it to teachmeaboutthegreatlakes at gmail.com or leave a message on our hotline at 765-496-4444. Or if you want to send us a postcard, you can send us a postcard to 195 Marsteller Street in West Lafayette, Indiana, 47907. We love postcards so much.

Please send us postcards.

[Stuart Carlton]
Thanks for listening and keep greeting those lakes.