Gall, who has been interested in this specialty for 18 years, now holds the position of Seafood Specialist with the New York Sea Grant program. It encompasses a collection of state programs that ties together Cornell University and the State University system. The research portion of the program is housed at SUNY Stony Brook and I am working on outreach. Gall works with seafood processors, retailers, wholesale distributors, importers and restaurants in the promotion of seafood information. Over the past 20 years, the trend in consumption of seafood has been increasing in New York because of availability and price.
Culture also plays a part in seafood consumption.
According to Gall, each individual firm that is involved with seafood needs to look at the product and their process in terms of food safety. They need to be educated in ways of finding hazards and then preventing and eliminating them. Monitoring and record keeping are also important steps in ensuring the safety of seafood. Gall was instrumental in developing a three-day training program that was conducted throughout New York State to educate those in the seafood industry. Gall said he is pleased that his training program is almost completely converted into an Internet program that can be accessed by everyone who helps to bring seafood from the waters to the consumer.