Fishing Families: The Nanfelt Family (Kyler Seafood)

The Nanfelt family and Kyler Seafood have been a leader in New Bedford’s commercial seafood industry for nearly 80 years. Patriarch Alfred Nanfelt got his start in the seafood business selling fish door to door for his older brother’s retail market in New Jersey. In the mid-1930s, Alfred founded Coastal Fisheries (which would later become Kyler Seafood) and soon moved the business to Philadelphia. In 1946 Coastal Fisheries opened a filleting plant in New Bedford, where, under the leadership of Alfred and his son Ronald, it became the city’s largest seafood processing company during the 1950s and 60s.

Today, Kyler Seafood is owned and operated by Alfred’s grandson, Jeff and his wife Diane. In 1996, Jeff established Kyler’s Catch Seafood Market and Kitchen to complement the company’s wholesale division with a retail market targeting local customers. Jeff’s two sons, Zack and Troy, the fourth generation of the Nanfelt family, oversee the restaurant and market divisions respectively.

This video is part of New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center's "Hauling Back: A Generational Fishing Family Project," which presents stories of multigenerational fishing families and businesses in New Bedford and along the South Coast. In fishing, hauling back is the process of retrieving fishing gear from the water after it is deployed. And just as fishermen haul back their nets to bring in the catch, so too do fishing families pull knowledge and skills from the past to share with future generations.

For more than a century, the Port of New Bedford has been home to fishing families who work aboard fishing vessels or in the shoreside support industries. For them, fishing is a ‘way of life,’ with skills and knowledge passed from one generation to the next. Today, New Bedford’s fishing industry remains remarkably resilient, and as many industries in the United States continue to globalize, the waterfront still supports many independent, family-owned and operated fishing vessels and shoreside businesses.

While some of the families featured in this project are not located in New Bedford, all share a connection to the local fishing industry. These proud waterfront legacies are still alive to this day.


Acknowledgements

Exhibit Co-curators: Laura Orleans and Joe Ritter
Project Videographer: Markham Starr
Project Photographer: Phillip Mello
Project Webpage Designer: Matt Moyer Bell
Additional Archival Research: Connor Gaudet

This exhibit has been financed in part with Federal funds from the National Maritime Heritage Grant program, administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, through the Massachusetts Historical Commission, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin, Chairman. However, the contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior, or the Massachusetts Historical Commission, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Department of the Interior, or the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

Additional support provided by Massachusetts Cultural Council.