Rising Tides: Turning Waste into Value on the Maine Coast – with Liam Fisher

Send us Fan MailMaine's working waterfront generates enormous amounts of waste — fish heads, viscera, eel trim — material that processors pay to get rid of. Liam Fisher thinks that's an opportunity hiding in plain sight.In this episode of Rising Tides, Bill Perna speaks with Liam about the unlikely path that brought him from mechanical engineering in Worcester to hand-cutting eels on the Maine coast, and how a bucket of smelts from a roommate set him on the road to building Maine's first waste-stream fish sauce.Trained in the fermentation traditions of fine dining and shaped by years working in aquaculture and seafood processing, Liam has developed a garum — an ancient fermented fish sauce — made entirely from byproducts that would otherwise be discarded. The product launched quietly in July and sold out its first case in a single day. Since launch, the product has found its way into restaurants and retail shops across the Maine coast, with demand already outpacing what he can currently produce.Their conversation covers the science of fermentation, the economics of waste utilization, and what it takes to turn a passion project into a sustainable business on the Maine coast.Perna Content's Rising Tides explores how coastal Maine is adapting to environmental, economic, and cultural change through long-form conversations with people working on and alongside the water. New episodes are released fortnightly.The podcast accompanies the book Rising Tides: Adapting to Maine’s Coastal Future, available at www.pernacontent.com/publishing