With restaurants across the United States shuttered COVID-19 outbreak restrictions, the seafood supply chain in most regions has grinded to halt. Fishermen are stuck with their catch left unsold and their boats tied up.
Legislators in Massachusetts and Alaska have called for urgent support for the fishing industry, but fishermen are stuck fending for themselves in the meantime. For fishermen and businesses focused on direct marketing and selling their catch locally, this means quickly pivoting their businesses to adjust to consumer needs during the pandemic.
Tele Aadsen of Nerka Sea Frozen Salmon in Bellingham, Wash., has been hustling nonstop to earn what she can since dining rooms were closed on March 15 and restaurants were limited to takeout and delivery options. Practically overnight, 90 percent of the company’s clients were lost.
We’re adapting on the fly and without a road map, Aadsen, who runs the business with her husband Joel Brady-Power, told National Fisherman.
Nerka Sea Frozen Salmon was founded by Brady-Power’s father in 1998, when he would truck his coho around to local restaurants to convince them to serve his catch. Those same businesses were still taking fish from Nerka Sea up until last week. Now Aadsen has been forced to quickly shift toward selling to individuals to keep income flowing. However, selling whole, headed and gutted fish to single consumers is a bit different than selling portioned fillets.
We’ve been lucky that folks have been so supportive. Whole fish can be intimidating or too much for consumers but people are saying Oh no, it’s OK. We’ll take a fish and figure it out. We can look up a Youtube tutorial, said Aadsen.
Similarly, the owners of Get Hooked in Santa Barbara, California, have jumped into local home delivery as restaurants close, supermarkets begin to look like hotbeds for germs and folks look to avoid public pick-up points. Chief Operations Manager Victoria Voss said the company has seen a major uptick in subscriptions and special order requests.
For leaders in seafood direct marketing and community-supported fisheries, the breakdown of the U.S. seafood supply chain under the stress of the COVID-19 restrictions is an example of a larger problem with our food system, not a one-time, emergency fueled issue.
Joshua Stoll, a professor of Ecology and Environmental Sciences at the University of Maine and coordinator of the Local Catch Network, has been organizing conversations between struggling fishing businesses online as Maine’s lobster industry struggles to adapt to fishing during a pandemic.
This COVID-19 outbreak and the conversations about it really speaks to the vulnerability of our food system, said Stoll, comparing the sudden halt in seafood sales to the immediate post-9/11 market. Almost overnight food systems came crashing down and have left fishermen, their families and coastal communities economically vulnerable. Every time an event like this occurs, we’re all in the same boat since we have to work within a global seafood system that doesn’t really support local communities.
2020 Diversified Communications