Community supported fishery Sitka Salmon Shares, which specializes in frozen Alaskan fish and shellfish sent by mail, recently shut down its Sitka, Alaska, U.S.A.-based processing plant.
Founded in 2011, Sitka Salmon Shares thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic, when customers were drawn to its direct-to-consumer model of business, which has a focus on shipping Alaska-harvested seafood directly to residences in the U.S. Midwest.
The company is still going strong, but has seen a pullback in the marketplace as the U.S. has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, Sitka Salmon Shares Co-Founder and Vice President Marsh Skeele said.
“We are not going under. Sitka Salmon Shares is not going away,” Skeele told SeafoodSource. “We still have a very robust customer base and we still have great sources for seafood. It just won’t be processed directly by us.”
Customer demand has declined since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Skeele acknowledged, forcing Sitka Salmon Shares to close the processing plant in early June and lay off 40 employees.
“Sales are down from last year. We have a really strong, loyal customer base, but we weren’t able to reach last year’s sales numbers,” Skeele noted. “When we had to process ourselves, we weren’t big enough to support that, so we had to make some cuts. With all the overhead we had, it was hard to be flexible. It takes a lot to build processing capacity and it’s expensive. I invested a lot and a lot of people invested personally.”
Sitka Salmon Shares was able to help most of the plant’s employees obtain jobs locally and with partner processors.
“There is so much demand for seafood processing right now,” Skeele said.
Partner-processors will now process 100 percent of the company’s seafood, Skeele confirmed. In 2020, partners processed around 50 percent of its products while other years it has been between 60 and 70 percent, Skeele said.
“Fish processing is a difficult industry to compete in. There is a lot more capacity than there is fish in a lot of areas of Alaska,” Skeele said. “But we are grateful for this process, to understand what goes on in the processing facility; not just in delivering fish. We are grateful for the people who have helped get us here and we are still excited to keep the company strong and for what we consider this really amazing seafood connection for people around the country.”
Photo courtesy of Sitka Salmon Shares
