Alaska pollock M&A update: Jones Act seen as long-term threat as aging fleet, costs stall deals

/in

‘For fisheries that have low profit margins to begin with, the Jones Act — and specifically the constraint that US-flagged vessels be built in the US — threatens their very viability’ — Mark Working, co-founder and managing partner of Zachary Scott

A century-old US law is threatening the future of the Alaska pollock sector.

The Jones Act — formally Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 — was ostensibly created to protect the US domestic shipbuilding industry. It requires all vessels transporting goods in US waters, including seafood, be built in the US from domestically-sourced materials, be at least 75% owned by US citizens, and be crewed predominantly by US citizens.

Those constraints, combined with higher US labor and steel costs, have left Alaska pollock fishing companies unwilling or unable to undertake new-builds and with no choice but to continue operating 30- or 40- year-old ships, industry sources told Undercurrent News.

“Back in the ’80s, you could build a brand-new [20-foot catcher] boat for $3 million. Now you’re spending $3m with a shipyard just to get plans in place,” Bob Desautel, the chairman of US pollock catcher boat operator Global Seas, told Undercurrent recently. “A catcher boat today costs $55m. Then, you’re looking at up to $400m for a catcher processor.”

In the face of relentless global competition from foreign fleets that are often subsidized by their national governments, the Jones Act contributes to a structural disadvantage for US pollock harvesters and processors, affecting valuations, potential M&A activity and the industry’s long-term future.

Aging assets, uncertain valuations

The Jones Act indirectly mandates that participants in the seafood industry compete on unequal footing in the global marketplace, according to Mark Working, the co-founder and managing partner of Zachary Scott.

His Seattle, Washington-based boutique investment bank provides mergers and acquisitions, capital advisory and strategic financial consulting services to privately held middle-market companies, including many in Alaska’s seafood industry.

“The US seafood industry operates with a relatively inflated cost structure — required by regulation, not because of biology or geography — but earns revenue from selling a commodity in the global marketplace, competing against international producers without the same cost burden. For fisheries that have low profit margins to begin with, the Jones Act — and specifically the constraint that US-flagged vessels be built in the US — threatens their very viability,” he told Undercurrent.

The industry has simply not come to grips with the fact that their quota is limited in value by the fact that their vessels have a set lifespan that is eventually going to run out, he said.

“The biggest issue facing the industry is that the vessels have to be replaced at some point. They’re not forever assets. They are expensive,” Working said. “Funding has to come from borrowing more, which might not be possible in the current environment, or new investor equity, and the large capital expenditures will drag down valuations.”

Between competition from Russia, poor fishing and a bearish 2026 forecast, as reported by Undercurrent, the Alaska pollock sector is struggling, Desautel said. He expects more vessel owners to sell out in the coming years.

“People will be evaluating, looking at how long they want to be in the fishery and who is going to take over when they are gone,” he said.

Additional factors impacting the sector are a higher Japanese yen, higher cold storage and labor costs due to minimum wage increases in Alaska and Washington, a senior banking executive serving Alaska’s seafood sector told Undercurrent. Also, the market has shifted thanks to the drawn-out war in Ukraine,

“It’s tough because so many of the challenges are outside the industry’s control. All those factors create challenges or headwinds that the industry can’t do anything about,” the executive said.

Several major Alaska pollock firms, including Trident Seafoods, Arctic Storm and American Seafoods are carrying “a fair bit of debt,” adding further stress to their balance sheets, the source said.

The significant long-term debt being carried by the sector “is a burden in uncertain times that is pressuring companies,” according to Jana Singleton, a senior vice president with Bank of America, who works closely with the seafood industry in the Pacific Northwest.

“Margins in the captureprocessor business tend to be higher than the other industry subsectors, but long-term financing needs for new or refurbished vessels are substantial,” she told Undercurrent.

Regulatory constraints like the Jones Act are significantly pushing up the cost of doing business for an industry that already faces unpredictable headwinds, Singleton said.

“Debt is a limiting factor on the evolution of the industry. No company would likely have the ability to use cash to build a sophisticated catcher-processor vessel, regardless of ownership, due to the regulatory provisions of building vessels,” she said. “Fortunately, these companies have a very strong financial footing with quota and existing vessel ownership.”

American drama

Perhaps no single company’s situation is more illustrative of the uncertainty facing the Alaska pollock sector than American Seafoods, which had been for sale for nearly a decade until the Seattle, Washington-based fishing firm made the decision to pause its sale process in 2024, citing “dire times” in the surimi market.

“It tells you a lot that they can’t get American Seafoods sold,” the senior banking executive said. “I really thought American would have been sold by now.”

The source continued: “I worked with people in the past few years who made an effort and couldn’t get there. And I’ve talked to other potential buyers and said, ‘Hey, is this something you want to pursue, can we help provide financing? And everyone said they didn’t like the math, or they made an offer that was below what they wanted to sell it for.

“I know they have turned down multiple offers. I suspect if they had a chance to do it over, they might have taken one of those offers, because they were higher than where the market is now.”

The big question mark for American is its vessels, the source said.

“Are they something that people are willing to take a bet on? I don’t know. It seems like pretty steady business but major capex awaits,” he said. “[Potential buyers] are looking at the holistic business picture and the multiple of the cashflow generated by American or other firms is just not working for them.”

Eventually, American will sell, but the timeline is unclear, said C.J. Arrigo, a director at Antarctica Advisors, a specialist strategic advisory service for the global seafood industry.

“That’s the $1 billion question,” Arrigo said. “It’s like Lucy and the football — people get close, and then the ball gets pulled back. Everyone’s waiting, but the math hasn’t worked yet.”

Besides American, though, Arrigo doesn’t foresee many more transactions taking place in the Alaska pollock sector.

“You won’t see the upheaval or the big moves that you saw in the last couple years that were forced by the turmoil we saw,” he said. “You may get some minor consolidation, some putting together of fleets to gain efficiencies.”

The senior banking executive said the sector is not in panic mode, and some companies are doing fine.

“There’s a couple guys on the smaller end that don’t have any debt and do a great job with their boats. They are in great shape but they’re not in a hurry to get bigger. They recognize they’re in a pretty good spot where they can keep making money with what they’re doing,” he said.

 

Innovation and surimi’s next act

Bright spots for the pollock industry are also seen with product innovations, especially when it comes to surimi, Arrigo said. Processors like Aquamar are getting creative in an effort to leverage the product’s convenience and stability in the fast-growing sushi and grab-and-go market, he said.

“Because it’s cooked, it’s less perishable than the raw ingredients you find in sushi or convenience-store cases. Aquama has seen that opportunity, and others will too,” he said. “There’s also room for innovation in foodservice — especially with fast-food chains looking for new sandwiches or seasonal items during Lent. There’s real potential for companies to move beyond the usual surimi and fish sandwiches, and that’s where the next wave of innovation will come.”

Those opportunities extend to the Amendment 80 groundfishing companies, which Arrigo said “haven’t changed much in decades.”

“Even something as simple as moving from labeling it flounder to yellowfin sole — it’s the same fish, it just sounds more appealing,” he said.

 

Other obstacles

The Sino-US trade war and other global economic instability caused by US president Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on much of the rest of the world are causing additional waves of agita for the industry,

Undercurrent’s sources said.

“The current environment is pushing people to rethink their supply chains and get closer to the customer,” Working said. US tariffs and the US ban on Russian pollock last year have caused a realignment of the Alaska pollock market, with most product now sold domestically. But the industry should be more wary of tariffs, Working said, since they generally cause prices to rise.

Working said the industry was fortunate to win the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging the US government was not doing enough to protect the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska from damage caused by trawling for pollock, as Undercurrent reported.

Call for reform

If the industry could collectively take aim at one problem, Working said it’s the Jones Act that must be targeted for reform.

“The act was meant to protect US shipyards, but it’s created an inefficient monopoly,” he said. “American yards build at three to five times the global cost. The result is an aging fleet, higher prices and less competitiveness.”

While the law’s national security rationale still carries political weight, especially with the Trump administration, which has sought to bolster domestic manufacturing, there’s ample evidence that targeted reform, such as allowing foreign-built hulls or the use of imported steel, could benefit US consumers.

“Most Americans are unaware of the Jones Act and the effects it has on everyday purchases. That’s because from the end consumer’s perspective, there’s no explicit Jones Act surcharge on [US-caught seafood], despite a very real increase to price,” he said.

American shipyards, domestic shipping firms and maritime workers have lobbied Congress hard to maintain the status quo, and the success of that campaign can be seen in the staunch support of the act by Alaska’s two US senators, Working said.

Perhaps instead of lobbying for US Department of Agriculture purchases, which have hoovered up a major portion of the US product available on the market, the industry should focus on Jones Act reform, the senior banking executive suggested, saying there’s a political opportunity available in the form of Trump’s “restoring America’s seafood greatness” executive order, issued in April.

“Some kind of Jones Act exemption is the only way they can afford to recapitalize the fleet. And without upgrades, the fleet will never become more efficient,” he said. “We’re at the point where companies need to get a two-for-one on a factory trawler, allowing them to tie up two vessels by the efficiencies gained in one new boat. If you could do that for $125m, that would be great, but you can’t right now,” he said.

The federal government could help further by committing to investments in port and shipbuilding infrastructure, he said.

Another senior banking executive actively working with the Alaska pollock sector said the burden and inflexibility of the Jones Act is putting the US domestic fishing industry at a huge disadvantage that could eventually create an existential crisis.

“The Jones Act isn’t protecting us anymore. It’s pricing us out of the future,” he said.

 

SOURCE: Undercurrent News

Alaska salmon M&A update: Solid 2025 season sets up sector for success

/in

Four finance experts with deep roots in Alaska’s salmon industry give their predictions for what’s to come as the sector retrenches after several difficult years.

The 2025 salmon season in the US state of Alaska delivered solid, if unspectacular, results for the remaining players still standing after a tumultuous few years in the industry.

The outcome is providing a measure of stability to a sector that has undergone a massive wave of change and consolidation over the past two years, according to four top Alaska-focused mergers and acquisitions (M&A) experts who spoke with Undercurrent News recently.

Salmon is perhaps the most iconic species in the US state that accounts for more than half of the nation’s total seafood production. But the industry has been beset by turbulence, as Undercurrent has reported, resulting in the pullback of Alaska behemoth Trident Seafoods and the disappearance of stalwarts like OBI Seafoods and Peter Pan Seafoods.

“If it was another tough year, there were people who would have been forced to exit one way or the other. Either they wouldn’t be able to get financing or their bank was going to force them to do some things they may not want to do,” a senior banking executive serving Alaska’s seafood sector told Undercurrent.

Alaskan fishermen harvested 41.2m sockeye in Bristol Bay in 2025, up 30% from 2024 and 18% above the preseason forecast, as reported by Undercurrent.

The final weekly salmon harvest update from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI), offering catch data through Sept. 6, revealed mixed results during the 2025 season.

Though catches were generally poorer this year outside of Bristol Bay, significant runs in the world’s largest sockeye fishery provided a crucial backstop for a sector badly in need of a measure of stability.

“Obviously, catches were low everywhere except Bristol Bay. The pinks didn’t come in as expected. But [processors] were able to get the pounds sufficient to meet their plans. Everything they have is sold. It’ll take time, obviously, to work through it, and they were hoping it had a been better [season all-round], but they’re in OK shape,” said the source, who requested anonymity.

While the sockeye run wasn’t universally great, with poor returns in a few areas, fish sizes returned to higher averages and the runs came in over a longer duration, unlike in previous years, where processors have been jammed and intake times stretched out, resulting in a drop in product quality, he said.

Importantly, processors were in better shape to maximize the good season, the source said.

“The fact that the industry in Alaska went into the salmon season in such a better place helped a ton,” the source said. “There wasn’t a huge inventory carryover. There was pretty solid demand from buyers and the prices buyers were willing to pay was up over the last couple of years.”

Still, Alaska’s salmon industry is still very much in transition, the source said.

“I would not say we’re set at a new normal yet,” he said. “There are still some moving parts out there.”

Big three

After the major realignment of the industry through lean years beginning in 2022, the three largest survivors — Silver Bay Seafoods, Trident and Canadian Fishing Company (Canfisco) — remain the dominant players. However, consolidation may continue, the source said, as there’s a near-universal realization now that there’s no easy money to be made in Alaska’s salmon industry.

“We had two very brutal years that triggered some massive changes in Alaska. 2022 was a bad year, but people had hoped it would bounce back in 2023 and they would be fine. After another bad year, it just got to where people realized they couldn’t do it anymore. They couldn’t count on running plants that didn’t make money, or that only made money every third year,” the source said.

“That willingness to be honest with themselves about their reality is what drove a lot of those changes, like what happened with Peter Pan disappearing and Trident selling out. And I don’t think we’re through this transition period, because people are really making business decisions now, instead of just hoping things will get better next year.”

There are two pathways to success in Alaska’s current-day salmon industry: through size or specialization, he said.

“Being big and having all that scale is one way to be successful in Alaska, while the other is grabbing a niche and being a specialist that does one thing very well and makes a name for themselves doing it,” he said.

Copper River Seafoods, an Anchorage-based processor with five facilities across Alaska, is a good example of “a company that has a brand and stays in its lane,” the source said.

The company, which operates its own branded salmon line sold in grocery retailers and through direct-to-consumer online marketing services, won the state’s 2023’s Manufacturer of the Year award for its innovative efforts to better utilize salmon byproducts and offcuts

“But being a medium-sized firm that’s in a couple of locations hoping to meet their demand, I just don’t think that works anymore,” the source added.

Nowadays, there are very few companies actively looking to grow, he said, and several who would sell.

“I think there are still folks open to getting out and if they could get the right price, they would,” the source said. “I know of a couple little guys who would love to partner with somebody bigger. Some are still barely making it.”

The source named online sales specialist Wild Alaska Company as a sole exception. The Homer, Alaska-based company, launched in 2017, made two big hires recently in a big step toward breaking more into retail and foodservice sales, as reported by Undercurrent.

“They’ve made a couple of moves and talked a little bit about possibly becoming more vertically integrated. So maybe they would be somebody who might be interested in a plant or something,” he said.

“But otherwise, most people are either are good with what they’ve got or wouldn’t mind having fewer assets. Maybe Wild Alaska takes advantage of that and enters a partnership or perhaps they get a plant or two in a couple key locations to just control their own supply.”

Trident’s scaleback

Trident, while still one of Alaska’s biggest processors, initiated a comprehensive restructuring initiative in 2023 that involved the sale of four of its Alaska shoreside plants, among other moves, as Undercurrent reported at the time.

While still a major player, Trident’s move to downsize its Alaska footprint came as a surprise to some, but the decision was purely financial, according to the senior banking executive.

“My sense about Trident is they just looked around and said, ‘You know that location, we make money there once every few years, and maybe that’s not good enough anymore,'” the source said. “That plant or vessel we’ve owned for decades, we don’t use it or we don’t make money regularly, and it’s not worth paying the mortgage anymore.

They got to a point where they decided if not worth opening it, they should just cut back. They started making business decisions around where to operate.”

Others have made similar moves, just on a smaller scale, the source said, “but that maybe got overshadowed because Trident is just so big that they get all the attention.”

Trident remains a massive global player, but its identity has shifted from being an Alaskan seafood company to a value-added firm, Mark Working, the co-founder and managing partner of Zachary Scott, a Seattle-based boutique investment bank that provides mergers and acquisitions, capital advisory and strategic financial consulting services to privately held middle-market companies, including many in Alaska’s seafood industry, agreed.

“After growing across many fisheries and international sales channels, Trident undertook a strategic realignment of its businesses to allow it to focus on its value-added products and areas where it can sustainably compete internationally. Ultimately, it had to make a choice and viewed its commodity salmon operations as the least supportive of its competitive position,” Working recounted.

Quality investments

Following an acquisition streak that included purchases of rival OBI Seafoods and Trident’s Ketchiken plant, Silver Bay Seafoods is now widely regarded as the “big kahuna” of Alaska’s salmon industry.

Adding to its riches, Silver Bay Seafoods was set to acquire all of its struggling rival, Peter Pan Seafoods, after the 2024 Alaska salmon season, having inked a deal to acquire one of its plants and operate two more.

However, while Peter Pan’s assets were sold via a forced receivership process, many of them ended up in the hands of Peter Pan’s former owner, Rodger May, who beat out Silver Bay in an auction process in September 2024, as Undercurrent reported.

Now, there are unresolved ownership issues between Silver Bay and Peter Pan, as reported by Undercurrent, clouding the short-term future of processing plants in Port Moller, Dillngham and King Cove.

However, with Silver Bay’s other big moves, the operational landscape of the industry is largely set for coming years, the bank executive said.

Silver Bay and Trident have been joined by Canfisco as the three big players in Alaska salmon industry. Canfisco, part of the sprawling $10 billion turnover Jim Pattison Group, Canada’s second-largest private company, acquired a stake in E&E Foods and Alaska processor Big Creek Fisheries in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

Silver Bay now has at least a 60-70% share in processing Alaskan pink and sockeye salmon, while those big three now control 70-80% of Alaskan sockeye salmon processing, one source estimated.

The next few years will see less M&A and more investment in internal improvements to processing capacity, with a focus on quality and using profits to pay down debt, added Working.

“The consolidation has unlocked enough profit margin that the industry can invest in itself again,” he said. “Innovation will spawn capital investment to apply greater automation and new technologies and systems to lower costs and improve quality. Further plant-level consolidation is likely, although within entities, as new highly-efficient plants will replace old infrastructure. With all the indirect costs having been squeezed out, direct production efficiency is the only remaining path to higher profits and a sustainable future.”

Those who can figure out the quality game will be the most successful moving forward, Working said, with floating processors Northline Seafoods and Circle Seafoods, described as “R&D experiments,” good examples to follow.

The two Washington state-based firms just finished up their first full seasons operating floating freezer barges, having been launched in 2024 with the idea of improving the quality of the salmon they process by speeding up the time between catch and freezing, as Undercurrent reported.

“There is some real sound experience that’s being developed there that will end up showing the industry a way to get better quality,” Working said. “They’re small relative to the whole industry there, but I hope they will become more than that.”

The view that M&A action is likely to be limited in the near-term future is shared by C.J. Arrigo, a director at Antarctica Advisors, a specialist strategic advisory service for the global seafood industry.

“The industry is not far out of a pretty tough storm, and now there’s all this economic instability with the US tariffs,” he said. “I think everyone is going to going to catch their breath, take stock, evaluate where they stand and then figure out how they want to move forward,” he said.

There is consensus that those who escape the commodity trade will fare best, according to Arrigo.

“Everyone wants to capture more margin and is figuring out how to do that,” he said. “Clearly, you’ve seen some of the first movers already, and that’ll spread. The lights are coming on, but it’s not going to be overnight.”

Jana Singleton, a senior vice president with Bank of America, who works closely with the seafood industry in the Pacific Northwest, said the next few years will bring less big-ticket mergers and acquisitions and more internal plant investments.

“Capital expenditures in plants getting retrofitted or getting new equipment are definitely less costly than building a full-scale new salmon processing plant. Any new-build plant in Alaska at this point is a monumental task that faces hurdles despite the long-term benefit,” Singleton said.

Long haul

While piecemeal, infrastructural investments would be proof that the industry is willing to be on the future of the salmon biomass in Alaska, which may be becoming less predictable due to climate change and other human-caused phenomena.

“People in the industry are not overly concerned with the unpredictability of the runs lately,” Working said.

“It’s just a super-risky business, and most of the people in the business are really steeped in it and understand it. If you can’t live with that, then you’re never going to invest in the industry.

That’s one of the reasons why you haven’t seen much outside money come into the Alaska seafood industry. Investors get intrigued by it, but then realize it’s much different than what they thought it would be.

“There is no real growth in the industry, only chances for innovation to become more efficient.”

Only the big three salmon players are of any possible interest to outside investors, he said.

“Possibly now that the remaining participants are large, there may be more stability and investors might look differently at these companies,” he said.

Despite the frequent use of the word “unprecedented” to describe the current situation facing the global seafood industry, there are rich historical lessons from Alaska’s salmon sector from which today’s operators can draw.

“The gut-wrenching reformation of this industry meant a lot of money was lost and gained, with a majority of the parties in the ‘disappointment’ column,” Working said.

“It is not unique in its evolution, and it’s difficult to say what the next 25 years will bring. If we can learn anything from our front-row seat, it’s that the survivors saw the writing on the wall and took action when they could, instead of when forced to. Things that can’t continue forever won’t, and being on the right side of the cost equation matters.”

SOURCE: Undercurrent News

 

Silver Bay’s emergence as Alaska salmon sector heavyweight catalyzes focus quality

/in

It will be interesting to watch what Silver Bay does next, given the size it has grown to, four financial executives in the US seafood industry told Undercurrent.

Alaska’s salmon sector is still unstable after several difficult years, but one clear winner has emerged from the turmoil: Silver Bay Seafoods (SBS).

Seattle, Washington-headquartered SBS has been on an acquisition spree since 2023, buying OBI’s 50% share of 10 Alaska plants in February and taking over additional plants previously owned by Peter Pan Seafoods and Trident Seafoods last year, as reported by Undercurrent News. It also bought Washington-based value-added processor Orca Bay Seafood in early 2023.

SBS now has more than $1 billion in revenue and controls at least a 60-70% share in processing Alaskan pink and sockeye salmon, according to a senior banking executive serving Alaska’s seafood sector.

“Silver Bay is definitely the big kahuna. What they have built has been amazing to see,” the source told Undercurrent.

“Honestly, I was a little surprised at how much they took on over the last 24 months.”

SBS’s move has been against the grain, as several other historical leaders in Alaska’s salmon industry have pulled back, including fellow Seattle-based Alaska giant Trident Seafoods, which sold four of its Alaska plants in a fire sale last year.

“Silver Bay has made the bet that they can be profitable if they’re the 800-pound gorilla in Alaska, that just by sheer scale, they can be the most efficient,” the source said. “It makes a huge difference for them, allowing them to be a little more flexible and nimble in response to the market.”

The executive said SBS’s business model of having fishermen as owners is another factor in its favor.

“Because those fishermen are locked in and see all the books, they have the trust,” they said.

SBS’s growth has been impressive, according to Mark Working, the cofounder and managing partner of Zachary Scott, a Seattle-based boutique investment bank that provides mergers and acquisitions, capital advisory and strategic financial consulting services to privately held middle-market companies, including many in Alaska’s seafood industry.

“Silver Bay didn’t exist until 2007, so if you think about what they’ve accomplished in the short amount of time they’ve been around, it’s amazing,” he said.

The company’s emergence as the biggest player in Alaska’s salmon industry “might actually be good for everybody” in the industry, making it more likely that economic decisions will be made to maximize profits, which hasn’t been the case for all companies in Alaska’s salmon sector in recent years, Working said.

“Other companies will largely will follow them on prices. It means the fishermen are going to get paid a fair price, and not face boom-bust cycles of companies making blowout offers one year and then unable to operate the next, like with what happened in 2022 and 2023. It also means good prices in the marketplace, with greater consistency for everyone. There won’t be the big swings we saw in previous years.”

However, Working and other financial experts interviewed by Undercurrent said Alaska’s salmon industry is still in transition.

SBS has now realized most of the gains it can through consolidation and scale, and now must focus on improving the quality of its salmon products, Working said.

“The benefits of Silver Bay’s model will fund the next phase of innovation. Their next phase will be to attack quality,” he said. Further plant-level consolidation is likely, although within entities, Working said, as new highly efficient plants are built to replace old infrastructure.

“With all the indirect costs having been squeezed out, direct production efficiency is the only remaining path to higher profits and a sustainable future,” he said.

Quality will be the centerpiece of the next chapter of Alaska’s salmon industry, Antarctica Advisors director C.J. Arrigo agreed.

“In the past, there’s been such harsh, intense competition between the Tridents, the Peter Pans, the Silver Bays, and now that Silver Bay is the big kahuna, they can focus more on quality,” he said.

SBS’s acquisition of Orca Bay will likely help this transition, given its history of innovation.

“They are going to have to take some of that creative stuff that Orca Bay did and really do something to grab the full margin,” Arrigo said.

“In the long run, I think you’ll see the industry move away from the pure ‘dump it at the docks’ mentality to being more vertically integrated and value-focused through the whole supply chain.”

Ultimately, Alaska’s salmon sector — led by SBS — must insinuate itself further downstream, working to get more Americans to buy wildcaught, domestic salmon in the grocery store or out for dinner, according to Jana Singleton, a senior vice president with Bank of America, who works closely with the seafood industry in the Pacific Northwest.

Even in a tough market, Singleton said, “There are always opportunities and ways to make challenges become opportunities.”

SBS needs to be a leader in discovering the answer to the question “How much power does the Alaskan seafood space have to [move the needle on] the perennial question of increasing seafood consumption?” Singleton said.

“Consumers need to know there are other choices out there for consumers who [are concerned about] where their food comes from and what it takes to get their food to them, and who understand the benefits of feeding their family with Alaska seafood,” Singleton said.

Knowing that the US consumer has a variety of choices that they can bear the price points for, even in times of lower consumer income, that choice does not have to be the traditional or past focus on canned salmon, which generally is going to have a lower price point.”

 

SOURCE: Undercurrent News