Wayne Samiere is founder, president and CEO of Honolulu Fish Co. A trained marine biologist who worked for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Samiere launched his wholesale seafood business from his garage in 1995. Today he operates from a 5,000-square-foot facility in Honolulu, selling more than 30 varieties of fish to thousands of customers, including restaurants and consumers.
SeafoodSource: Tell me a little bit about Honolulu Fish and especially your two-pronged approach to supply both wholesale customers as well as individuals with wild Hawaiian fish: How did this come about and how does it fit with your overall strategy for the company?
Samiere: For the past 20 years Honolulu Fish Co. has specialized in delivering fresh, wild caught Hawaiian fish from the boats in Hawaii directly to restaurants across the country. Our business started out as wholesale distribution, but through innovation and a long leap of faith, we converted to direct restaurant sales. With our process we can unload a boat in Hawaii and deliver fully processed fillets and loins to chefs in New York City by 8 a.m. the next morning, 5,000 miles away – actually faster than a person traveling from Hawaii can get to the same restaurant.
We made Hawaii as easy to access by a chef as just about any other source. What we found is that there are a great many people besides foodservice professionals who have a great love for Hawaii fish, particularly Hawaiian bigeye ahi. We developed our consumer business because we were getting so many requests from very passionate fans of Hawaiian fish. Selling to consumers and restaurants actually complements each other. Consumers wind up asking for our brand when they go to a restaurant and chefs benefit from menuing a brand that is known to consumers.
Hawaii is unique in that we have a fishery that delivers every day, all year. The other unique thing is that the boats are focused on producing ahi for the sashimi and raw consumption market. Fish from Hawaiian boats are sold one-by-one to a wide variety of buyers. Every buyer has a chance to outbid other buyers if they see great value in one particular fish. With this method of buying from the boats we can select exactly the level of quality we want to purchase from the boat and pass on the level of quality we don’t want to purchase. Having real control of the fish you want to work with is a rare in the seafood business.
SeafoodSource: How does your background as a trained marine biologist influence how you run your business?
Samiere: During my years in biology, I studied entire fish communities’ structures. I developed a great sense of the importance of habitat and how the presence or absence of one species in a community structure affects other species. Before sustainability was in the forefront, I set forth my own set of harvesting ethics that we were going to abide by as a company.
My experience in biology also gave me a great sense of value for the many creatures captured in commercial fishing that are not targeted only because they are not well-known by the public. Early on we set a course to focus on markets for the non-targeted fish. Fifty percent of our sales are for fish that are not in the top 10 most-popular species.
SeafoodSource: What do you see as the one or two top issues facing your particular sector of the seafood industry, and what solutions would you offer to address those issues?
Samiere: The top issues we face today are threats of closures of the Hawaiian fisheries for reasons not related to Hawaii's great resource management. Hawaii is the most regulated, most monitored fishery in the United States. Each boat is tracked by satellite and has government observers on board to monitor the catch. Even with great management in place, we face constant quota challenges or interest groups pressure to limit fishing.
The other great challenge we face is probably the same as most other U.S. fisheries. That is the conflicting sustainability and management information from NGO groups that seek to give guidance to seafood buyers. In general, I am a believer in the continuing debate over these issues. Our government is the best source of science-based fishery information. NOAA should play a larger, more visible role in consumer fishery education.
SeafoodSource: What has been your biggest business challenge this far? And what’s your greatest business achievement?
Samiere: Our biggest business challenge was pulling up stakes in the traditional distributor business and going 100 [ercent into the direct-to-restaurant market. From 1996 to 2000 most of our sales were to wholesalers. We saw great opportunity in direct sales to restaurants, but we had to do one or the other. I remember feeling like I was jumping off a cliff and I had to learn to fly right away.
Our greatest business achievement was building a customized data-stream process that greatly reduces labor costs and allows information to flow through from purchasing from the boats to sales instantly, which is why we can process so quickly and deliver to restaurants 5,000 miles away overnight. We hired programmers and pieced together different software packages because nothing existed to accomplish what we needed.
SeafoodSource: Who do you go to for business advice and what’s the best thing you’ve been told?
Samiere: For business advice, I rely more on the teachings of mentors like Peter Drucker and the Goldman Sachs “10 commandments of business development.” Drucker’s quote saying, “The best way to predict the future is to create it,” has been a driving force to innovate and carve out our niche. I prefer to work in a different space than other companies and develop unique services and products. In that space, we rely more on our customers’ feedback and are not afraid to experiment.
The very best advice that I was given occurred a very long time ago when I asked a seafood business leader, “What do you do when you have a good idea?” and got the reply, "Come out with both guns blazing and never stop." This is advice I would give to anyone today.
SeafoodSource: Given the chance to address a room filled with seafood industry executives such as yourself, what would be the one nugget of wisdom you’d like to offer them as your closing remark?
Samiere: The one nugget of advice I would give to a room full of my peers is: Never forget that lobster was once a lowly product sold as pet food and fed to prisoners. That was a long time ago before people knew about lobster and there was very little demand for lobster.
Maybe the greatest opportunity before us is with the fish that come off the boat that we don’t want because people don’t want it. Customers don’t want what they don’t know. Somewhere along the way a long time ago people became aware of lobster and the demand grew. There could be a gold mine in that ugly sculpin that you look down on or that scraggly rattail that gets tossed across the deck.
There are only two places that the general public gets to know seafood items. One is on a menu at a restaurant; the other is a retail display case at a grocery store. I think we can find more ways to use these two viewpoints to promote the lesser-known species. Directly promoting seafood consumption of non-targeted species on menus and in grocery stores can have a greater positive impact on our resources than a cool sustainability page on your website.
