Case Study: James Beard Foundation scales sustainable seafood sourcing education to 600+ restaurants with Airtable

How one organization helps chefs ensure food is sustainably sourced

The James Beard Foundation, through its Smart Catch program, helps chefs identify and avoid unsustainably sourced seafood but struggled with fragmented, manual data collection (a 15‑tab Google sheet) and reaching busy, non–desk‑bound chefs. To scale and streamline that work the foundation adopted Airtable’s platform, using its customizable views, forms, and automations to manage assessments and stakeholder needs.

Airtable’s solution centralized submissions, created tailored views for different stakeholders, and automated reminders (including scheduled texts), freeing staff from copy‑and‑paste tracking and allowing quicker generation of sustainability assessments. The streamlined system helped Smart Catch grow from 65 to nearly 600 restaurants in two and a half years, improving supply‑chain transparency and enabling the foundation to focus more on education and targeted outreach.

James Beard Foundation

Sarah Drew

Impact Programs Manager