BBRSDA staff and board were in Boston mid-March meeting with many industry partners and making new connections at our booth representing Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon at Seafood Expo North America (SENA).

Some highlights included Bristol Bay fishermen and direct marketers Taran White and Kara Berlin of Thunder’s Catch won the Seafood Excellence Award for Best New Retail Product for their smoked salmon chowder. Very exciting to have Bristol Bay sockeye salmon on the winning pedestal and even more so that it was a product direct from members of our fleet! This contest featured 71 entrants from the biggest names in seafood. Peter Pan was also a finalist in the contest for their Wild-Caught Alaska Sockeye Salmon with Kelp Chimichurri.

Alaskan Leader also debuted a Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon branded fillet bound for Costco Business Centers. The new product features an attractive window highlighting sockeye’s ruby-red color, prominent identification of the Bristol Bay origin, and a QR code which connects consumers to fishermen by bringing them to our Know Your Fisherman webpage.

For board members, it was eye opening to see the enormous scale of the trade show and the international seafood landscape. The number of producers, products, distributors, processors, and packagers was impressive. Also notably, the number of farmed salmon and other farmed seafood producers was huge compared to the number of wild fish products/producers on display at the show. While this is no surprise, it is impactful to see. The phrasing farmed salmon marketing uses to appear wild also caught our attention, it points out that a.) wild is the apex of what consumers want and b.) it can be confusing for consumers to tell the difference, we can help with that!

The Bristol Bay sockeye salmon story continues to resonate with retailers, distributors, and consumer. We are uniquely positioned to separate ourselves from farmed fish by positive messaging that sets us apart. In addition to telling our Bristol Bay story it is important to continue collaborating with Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) and wild Alaskan seafood suppliers to strengthen wild seafood’s place in the market.

Quality, quality, quality! This was a takeaway for all in attendance. Continuing to focus on improving quality and working with processors to do so is important for the competition of our product in the marketplace.

In addition to many in person events and meetings with retail partners, BBRSDA took the opportunity of being in Boston to make connections in the food service sector. Board members visited 10 local restaurant chefs, provided sample fillets and personally ask them to add BB sockeye to their menus.