Wild Alaska salmon advantages go beyond taste and texture: price crash in 2000 led to industry innovations and superior product.

• Author: Swagel, Will
• Position: FISHERIES

Most people agree that competition is good for any industry, leading to innovation and efficiency. But try telling that to a glum-faced Alaska salmon fisherman circa 2000; it'd be a tough sell.

In the 1990s, Atlantic salmon raised on fish farms flooded the retail market and the price of Alaska wild salmon crashed. The fish farms could offer a fresh whole fish or custom fillets, butchered and shipped immediately and available on demand. While the Alaska wild product was intrinsically superior, Alaska processors could offer only frozen product or fresh product available just part of the year.

The situation grew dire when Alaska's wild salmon runs underperformed and ceded even more market share to the farmed fish that were streaming into the United States from Norway, Scotland, Chile, Canada (via British Columbia), and other coastal nations.

"The growth of the salmon farms was prolific," says Tyson Fick, communications director for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI). "That really culminated into desperate times for the wild salmon market in late 1990s and early 2000s." During that time, the industry lost more than half of its fishermen and processing companies.

Alaska's fishermen, processors, marketing boards, and the state and federal government responded to the economic emergency and have achieved an almost complete turnaround. Today, the industry enjoys high prices for both fish and fishing permits. Although farmed salmon dominates today's market worldwide, the market for wild Alaska salmon is healthy and growing. The Alaska product fetches premium prices.

Fishermen have embraced such technical innovations as chilled seawater holds and consistent bleeding and icing of fish at sea. Processors have developed consumer-friendly products and packaging and have greatly improved the quality of their fresh and frozen offerings.

Eric Jordan, a salmon trailer in Sitka, remembers receiving only about $1 per pound for "beautiful, troll-caught king salmon" in 2002-2003.

In the winter of 2014-2015, he scored $11 per pound for king salmon that was shipped fresh. "We can hardly afford to eat our own fish," Jordan says.

Charity Begins at Home

The story of Kodiak-based purse seiner Bruce Schactler illustrates some of the changes in marketing Alaska wild salmon. Schactler says he started as a "simple salmon fisherman" who also was reeling from the low prices he was paid for his catch. Today, Schactler is the director of ASMI's Global Food Aid Program.

In the mid-1990s, Schactler joined an ASMI program that sent a small army of Alaskan fishermen to supermarkets in the Lower 48 to offer samples of their salmon to customers. Schactler was sent to stores in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio. While the fishermen told stories to customers, cooks sauteed coho fillets on a portable cooktop.

"They couldn't cook fast enough, there was always a line," Schactler says. "The customers wanted to hear the stories and sample the...