The Town Dock’s calamari is found across the country and around the world. And for good reason: our focus on quality.
Our in-house quality team of food scientists inspects and grades the local squid off our local vessels, ensuring only the highest quality squid continues in our supply chain for processing. For our imported products, we carefully vet processing plants
We also maintain strict specifications for all of our product lines, which ensures everyone is working towards the same end result and understands our high standards.
For our customers, this means that order after order, it’s The Town Dock quality seafood you know - with no surprises.
The Town Dock harvests our seafood with best practices to minimize impact to the environment and to ensure a healthy fishery for generations to come. We abide by each fishery’s quotas, guidelines, permits, and other requirements that are in place by regulatory bodies to help prevent overfishing and environmental damage.
A step beyond that, we spearheaded the first two species of squid that are certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). Our flagship Rhode Island Calamari® is certified sustainable Longfin Inshore Squid (Doryteuthis pealeii). In the trade, you’ll still commonly hear this referred to as Loligo or Boston Loligo, as it was previously classified as Loligo pealeii. Our Premium Domestic Calamari is MSC certified sustainable Northern Shortfin Squid (Illex illecebrosus), often simply called illex in the trade.
To meet the MSC standard, fisheries must display sustainable fish stocks, minimal environmental impact, and effective management. Additionally, their chain of custody standard tracks its seafood throughout processing, ensuring careful handling to minimize risks of seafood fraud. Beyond the initial audit, there are frequent reviews and the fisheries are completely re-evaluated every few years.
Go to the MSC’s website to learn more about their sustainability standards (opens a new window).
The Town Dock has an ethical supply chain policy which has been in effect for many years. We require all of our vendors and partners to review, sign, agree to, and abide by our policy. Our partners understand that unethical practices including but not limited to forced labor, child labor, IUU fishing, and unsafe working conditions are not acceptable within our supply chain.
We enlist a variety of tools to enforce this policy. We utilize social audits, which can be scheduled or surprise; we have employees overseas who makes in-person visits to review conditions and staffing; we utilize available information from varies trade and government agencies to simply avoid doing business in areas that currently pose a high risk of human rights abuses.
If we receive credible allegations of violation of this policy, we pause our relationship with that supplier for a full audit or investigation. If proven true – or we have reasonable belief that they are true – we would discontinue future business with that plant.
In addition to thorough reviews of potential new plants, we do annual reviews of our existing processors.
We remain committed to the fishing industry and our surrounding community here in southern Rhode Island. Our domestic seafood comes from our partner fleet and other local fisherman who unload right at our dock in the Port of Galilee or other ports here in southern New England. We support our partner fisherman with competitive pricing, an ice plant, advice, and more.
In addition to Longfin Inshore Squid and Northern Shortfin Squid, we land a variety of local seafood. We provide fresh local fish to a variety of stores and fish markets, including scup, fluke, black seabass, and more.
In addition to the business aspects, we support local charities such as the Fisherman’s Memorial Scholarship Fund, the Johnnycake Center, and more.
We are proud members and supporters of the State of Rhode Island’s DEM Seafood Marketing Collaborative. We know that supporting local seafood is supporting people and families in our own commercial fishing community and our neighbors throughout southern Rhode Island.
The Town Dock’s Core Values guide us in everyday decisions, big and small.
All of our commitments – to quality, sustainability, to an ethical supply chain, our community, our core values – lead into our commitment to our customers.
We are committed to providing a robust portfolio of high quality, ethically sourced calamari and seafood that is consistent from order to order. We strive to provide an excellent value for our price, and support customers whose values align with a family-owned, American-owned company here in Rhode Island.
401-789-2200 | info@towndock.com
The Town Dock | Narragansett, Rhode Island
