THE FISHING GOES ON BY MARY CATHARINE MARTIN
S
ome fast food restaurants in the Lower 48 have stopped serving hamburgers. Meatpacking plants have shut down. Grocery stores are frequently sold out of flour and rice. But Americans can buy Alaskan seafood directly from the fishermen who caught it – and, in increasing numbers, that’s what they’re doing. We spoke with direct marketers and community-supported fisheries, or CSFs, that focus on three different areas: Alaska, the Midwest, and the East Coast. In the time of COVID-19, the first priority for all three was ensuring the health of their staff and their customers. Next, they’re working to adapt creatively to the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has, almost overnight, changed the marketplace. For direct marketers, those changes have meant an increase in some kinds of sales.
The fishermen owners of Alaskans Own are mostly small-boat family businesses keeping wild seafood distributed to consumers during the coronavirus pandemic. “They’re committed to the long-term health of the resource and the community,” said Linda Behnken, executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, AO’s parent organization. (ERIC JORDAN)
aksportingjournal.com | JUNE 2020
ALASKA SPORTING JOURNAL
41
