On a cool, wet and windy day on the shores of Prince William Sound, Rich Wheeler was contemplating the fact that while it was maybe the worst spring weather he could remember in six years – the market was still hungry for wild fish.
“We could use more fish,” Wheeler said. “The demand is high, volume is low, and the marketplace is hungry for wild fish.”
Wheeler – alongside his wife Sena – owns the wholesale company 60° North Seafoods, as well as Sena Sea Seafoods, which serves retail markets.
Every summer they are in Cordova for the celebrated Copper River salmon fishery. As the fishery opens, the pair is selling to wholesale and retail customers online. Then in the fall, they are in the Lower 48 competing with not only other seafood processors in wholesale markets, but also other distributors and retail markets.
Their edge, said Wheeler, is great customer service.
“We pick up the phone when they call and remove the roadblocks from getting the product into their hands,” he said. “It’s also the way we handle our fish from the time it is caught until they get the product. It’s a little less mechanized.”
Rich Wheeler and a crew that includes his son Hugh fish from their vessel, Miss Camilou, and also buy salmon from some of the other several hundred fishermen out there harvesting. While sales are very busy right now, they are also very busy during the holiday season, he said.
Wheeler isn’t the only one wondering at the moment about the harvest potential.
According to Jeremy Botz, a fisheries biologist in the Cordova office of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), it’s still too early to say for sure whether this year’s run of wild salmon is tracking below the forecast.
ADF&G earlier issued a preliminary forecast for a strong run of sockeyes and a weak run of Chinook salmon.
As of June 10, commercial fishers were also harvesting in the Bering River, Coghill, Eshamy, Montague, and Southwestern districts of Prince William Sound, and fishing was underway in Cook Inlet.
Sockeyes were projected to be 55% above the 10-year average, with a commercial harvest estimate of 2.12 million fish. The Chinook run was forecast to be weak, with 36,000 fish.
As of June 10, several hundred fishing vessels in the overall Prince William Sound fishery had delivered an estimated total of 254,454 sockeyes, 293,643 chum, 3,686 Chinook, 315 pink, and 11 cohos – including 250,049 sockeyes, 14,446 chum, and 3,626 Chinook from the Copper River fishery.
Retail prices were varying widely, with intermittent supermarket sales in the Anchorage area.
Both Costco warehouse stores in Anchorage were keeping the price at $16.99 a pound for the fresh wild fillets. The local online retailer FishEx had Copper River sockeye portions for $56.95. Carrs-Safeway had a sale going, with their Copper River fillets at $25.99, down from $35.99, while Fred Meyer, part of the Kroger chain, was selling theirs for $23.95 to store card holders and $29.95 to other shoppers. 10th & M Seafoods was charging $21.95 a pound for fillets and $15.95 for headed and gutted fish, and at New Sagaya’s seafood counter the fillets were $18.99 a pound, and headed and gutted salmon were on sale for $11.99 a pound.
