Community supported model buoys seafood sellers
Skipper Otto’s customers pay upfront for fresh-caught fish
For several years, high school teachers Shaun and Sonia Strobel pondered the viability of their part-time business selling sustainably caught seafood, caught mainly by Shaun’s father Otto.
It was the teachers’ strike last spring that provided the nudge the couple needed to quit their day jobs and take the plunge.
“This was never intended to be a business,” Sonia said. But, after working through the numbers with a mentor from the Sauder School of Business at the University of B.C., they realized their little social enterprise had grown up, to the point that it could support both of them.
About six years ago, Sonia convinced 40 total strangers to buy fish directly from her father-in-law as a way to help support Otto’s livelihood by cutting out the packers, processors and retailers and adding a little more money to his bottom line.
The elder Strobel had been fishing during his summers away from his job — also as a high school teacher — since 1969. But the fishing business is a tough way to make a living these days, and Otto, now 73, was considering packing it in.
“He wanted to keep fishing, but he wasn’t able to break even,” she said.
A longtime supporter of the local food movement, Sonia was familiar with the social enterprise model used by farmers to market their produce directly to the public. By joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) individuals and families pay at the beginning of the season for a farmer’s produce, delivered weekly through the growing season.
Well Vancouver, meet the CSF, Skipper Otto’s Community Supported Fishery.
“We had been getting our fruits and vegetables directly from farmers and we had this aha moment that maybe we could apply those same principles to help fishermen get paid an honest wage and support sustainable fishing practices,” she explained.
She met with staff at FarmFolkCityFolk, an organization that supports CSAs, to pitch her idea, and together they brainstormed ways for her to structure Skipper Otto’s as a fair trade business that would pay fishermen more for doing right by the environment.
“I put out the word in 2008 for the 2009 fishing season and made a little website,” she said. “We had 40 members sign up the first year, people we didn’t know who sent us cheques for $250. The next year we had over 200 members.”
Fast forward to 2014 and Skipper Otto’s CSF now takes delivery from 15 fishermen and grosses more than $500,000 a year from 1,200 members.
At the beginning of the fishing season, subscribers pay a membership fee of $38 and then buy credit in $100 increments for the right to select fresh-caught salmon, halibut, sashimi-grade tuna, crab and prawns on Thursday evenings at the False Creek Fishermen’s Wharf.
“Thursday nights we get dozens of people coming down to pick up fish, especially when there is fresh fish,” Sonia said. “Some people bring potluck food and share it and listen to stories from the fishermen. It’s very social.”
During the summer there are weekend pickups at farmers’ markets, and members receive email alerts for additional pickups from the boats when fresh fish is available, based on the day’s catch.
“This month we introduced home delivery as an option in the city of Vancouver as a trial,” she said. The service is provided by the shared-economy courier firm Zipments at a flat rate of $8.
The average Skipper Otto subscription is now about $400, a figure that has grown steadily each year. Customer retention is about 87 per cent year over year.
“When people don’t come back we call and it’s always that they have moved away or something like that,” she said.
“We have more than doubled our members every year without doing any marketing. So there is strong word of mouth.”
Skipper Otto’s unusual retail model has also been a hit with people in northern B.C., Alberta and even Saskatchewan. Calgary customers enjoy weekly pickups of frozen seafood, as well as canned fish and lox, at a local farmers’ market. Subscribers in Peace River, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina and Saskatoon take larger, less frequent deliveries and in some places organize themselves into buyers’ clubs.
Fully half of the CSF’s business comes from outside southwestern B.C. In addition to directing the CSF, Shaun has not only left his teaching position but he has been able to return to fishing and make money at it.
“He had wanted to fish as he did when he was young with his father, but it just wasn’t financially viable,” Sonia said.
Skipper Otto CSF pays fishermen a premium for seafood that is harvested according to Ocean Wise standards to help maintain marine ecosystems.
That fair-trade price allows fishermen to use targeted techniques that reduce unintended bycatch. Otto’s gillnetter Omega V even has revival tanks to improve the survival chances of fish released back into the ocean when they are caught unintentionally.
By paying fishermen at the start of the season, Skipper Otto’s keeps prices stable for members and keeps its fishermen out of debt.
“We can guarantee the fishermen a fair price and we can pay them up front so they don’t need big lines of credit to get them started,” Sonia said.
“We have more than doubled our members every year without doing any marketing. So there is strong word of mouth. SONIA STROBEL CO-OWNER SKIPPER OTTO’S