People to Watch

“We want to promote mullet as a healthy and sustainable seafood.”

Seth Cripes

Seth Cripes has struck culinary gold in the humble mullet. Cripes, 32, owns Cortez Mullet Company and produces the dried mullet roe known as bottarga. The salty-sweet delicacy is wildly popular in Europe and Asia, where mullet has been overfished and prices have skyrocketed. Cripes has become the first bottarga producer in the U.S. by teaming up with lifelong friends who fish Sarasota Bay. Cripes, also a Napa Valley winemaker, has perfected a method of drying and curing the roe that is now featured at restaurants like The French Laundry in Napa. “We want to promote mullet as a healthy and sustainable seafood,” Cripes says. He wants to keep producing bottarga locally so he can control catch numbers and pay fishermen better wages. Cripes produced about 200 pounds of bottarga his first season in 2009. This year he expects 4,000 pounds of bottarga, 14,000 pounds of mullet meat and $80,000 in revenue. He hopes to export to Asia next year.

“From a publisher standpoint, I want to grow my distribution and just be a positive influence for Sarasota.”

Megan Wallin