Fishermen’s Challenge: Market Disruptions & Instability

Posted on October 16, 2023 by The Local Fish Team

Current Challenge: Market Disruptions & Instability

This is part two of a six part series.

As we built this platform, we surveyed commercial fishermen to identify pain points in the industry where we might be able to serve the community or fill a gap in the market. Over the course of two years we used questionnaires, in-depth interviews, focus groups, observation and participant observation, as well as collaboration with experts to get a realistic sense of the everyday challenges faced by commercial fishermen. 

One major challenge identified was the increased market disruptions and instability due to COVID-19. With many restaurants and businesses closing their doors or pivoting to takeout only, commercial fishermen were left with a major gap in their usual sales. Many were left with extra products on their hands and limited tools for selling. The ability to pivot to direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales requires a certain level of infrastructure; the ability and skill set to market directly to the public as well as the logistical and permitting capacity to offload their catch — whether that be through local delivery, pickup, or farmers’ market sales. The vast majority of small-scale fisheries are not set up to sell to the public this way. The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to sell their catch to larger wholesalers, creating a significant dip in profits and an increase in food miles. 

We hypothesized that if there were a well-suited intermediary that could handle the sales and marketing aspects as well as the permitting and logistical reality to getting a highly-perishable product off the boats and into the hands of consumers while maximizing profits for local fishers, that would optimize local sales in a limited market, keep products fresh and local, and help feed the ultimate consumer. After chatting with many of the local fishers in the region we discovered that this would indeed help to serve the greater community across the board. 

Sending local catch through a well-established system of marketing, sales, and logistics helps to take the burden off the fishermen so that they can focus on what they do best — catching fresh fish. During COVID-19, Saraspe Seafoods was forced to create such a system just to keep the business afloat. Luckily we had the branding and infrastructure in place to quickly pivot from restaurant sales to a DTC model that worked for both the fishermen and the end consumer. As the “Saraspe Seafoods Experience” started to expand, we were able to help other fishers offload their catch to local markets, increasing consumer awareness while optimizing profitability. 

We see a version of this as a sustainable model that can easily be scaled for both direct-to-restaurant (DTR) and DTC sales. Saraspe Seafoods has the marketing and logistical capacity to remove the burden of offloading catch from the fishermen while keeping the vast majority of profits in their pockets. The benefits of this model reach far beyond dollars and cents; as the environmental and health impacts of keeping local catch local will benefit this community (and others as we scale) for generations to come. While we hope the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us, we do want to be prepared for the next major crisis and having a system like this in place will keep the whole community poised to do just that.