At Kumbatia Seafood, we’re committed to delivering seafood as fresh as the moment it was caught.

At Kumbatia Seafood, we recently concluded a successful training program in Mkokotoni, Zanzibar, in collaboration with the Mwambao Coastal Community Network.

 “I learned to fish from my father when I was a teenager. Back then, we had no ice, so we used salt to preserve the fish. We also fished by reading the stars and the ocean, using nature as our guide.”

At Kumbatia Seafood, we are committed to continuously improving our practices to ensure our fishers consistently deliver high-quality products for our customers. Last month,

We are excited to announce our partnership with

We were honored to participate in [E14] Hour’s recent dinner event and panel discussion held by landscape and dog.

Very grateful to

Talya Shalev

Nicholas Murphy

As we move into the fishing high season along the Kenyan coast, we're excited to share some insights into what makes this time of year so special for seafood lovers and our fishermen.

Artisanally sourced seafood from East Africa demands extensive operational logistics and expertise, starting within the communities and extending to buyers regionally and overseas to offer a world-class product.

A critical but often less discussed aspect of sustainability in the seafood industry is the need for responsibly sourced inputs.

The Red Snapper, one of Kumbatia’s main offerings, is debatably the most sought-after reef species in the global seafood market. However, the Grey Snapper (locally known as “Cheusi” on the Kenyan coast), is Kumbatia employees’ favorite to eat and a highly regarded local delicacy amongst the fishers we work with in Lamu.

Coconut rice, mchuzi wa nazi (coconut curry sauce) and pan-seared grouper fillet.

Traceability helps in developing more equitable, sustainable, and healthy food systems. For Kumbatia, knowing where our seafood comes from also means knowing about and honoring the cultures that our harvesters come from.

Kiunga is a coastal community in the Lamu Archipelago, adjacent to the Somalia border.

Earlier this year Kumbatia formed The Council of Dealers, a governing body composed of three dealers and one fisher from each of the communities that Kumbatia collaborates with in Lamu County.

Madam Aziza is the chairlady of Lamu Fish Processors Common Interest Group (LFP CIG), a position she’s held since October 2018. Kumbatia has recently partnered with Madam Aziza and her facility to bolster our operations in Lamu County and support the various initiatives that improve local fishers' income.

Kumbatia collaborates closely with NRT, a membership organization owned and led by 45 community conservancies and dedicated to nurturing community conservancies for enhanced livelihoods and environmental preservation. Together we’ve established the Fish-to-Market program, aimed at increasing market demand for small-scale fishers and promoting sustainable development along the Kenyan coast.

Recent research, utilizing AI and satellite imagery and led by Global Fishing Watch, has uncovered alarming findings: 75% of the world’s industrial fishing vessels operate outside public oversight, with significant activity occurring within Africa’s waters.

We’ve all bought seafood that went bad right after we purchased it or tasted a little funky once we got to cooking. Luckily, these kinds of incidents are totally preventable if you know what to look for when selecting seafood from your local supermarket or fishmonger.

One way we try to maximize social and environmental returns is by partnering with NGOs and community-based conservancies that have shared missions around livelihood improvement and conservation.