Morro Bay Fishing Industry Special Report: Eureka fish seller banks on niche brand

Wild Planet label aims to distinguish locally caught fish from cheaper, generic products from overseas

Sona Patel

Comments (0) |

E-Mail

Text Size:

tool goes here

As a commercial buyer for Carvalho Fisheries in Eureka since 1990, Bill Carvalho was selling hook-and-line rockfish, beach drag fish, surf smelt, perch and king salmon.

But as the fishing industry collapsed in Eureka, Carvalho knew he had to change the way he did business, especially as harvest restrictions continued to tighten.

By 1998, he had fewer types of fish to buy and resell.

And his fish—which he bought and resold to wholesale production houses— were losing their Carvalho identity as soon as they entered canneries in Spain or sashimi production houses in Japan because they would not sell under his brand.

So Carvalho transitioned from solely buying local fish to selling specialty, locally caught Dungeness crab and albacore tuna. And he began looking at niche markets to sell the locally caught fish.

In 2004, he started branding consumer packages under the name Wild Planet, a company he owns with fishermen who have extensive experience in the global seafood business from Eureka, Crescent City and Newport, Ore.

“If we didn’t do this, we may have been forced to exit the industry, which isn’t good for anybody,” Carvalho said.

The company’s annual revenue has reached as high as $19 million but has been hovering around $5 million to $7 million a year recently.

Carvalho and his partners have invested about $600,000 in the firm, which was highly profitable until 2003 but has since experienced a decline.

“It was clear to us that there is no future in selling generic crab, tuna and salmon in a box because we are competing with overseas products that can undercut our price,” Carvalho said.

“We needed to have a story to tell about why these West Coast micro-cannery products are a better value and are superior to other industrial cannery products,” he added.

While their company specializes in selling canned tuna products, the firm recently started selling pouches of albacore tuna strips for use in restaurants, cafeterias and Google’s Bay Area headquarters. “We think it’s going to be a significant item for us,” he said.

Unlike pouches available in supermarkets, Wild Planet pouches are packed with fish that contain no addities. The firm also sells filet strips that are cooked only once in the pouch, Carvalho said.

He’s confident more companies will switch to using “sustainable seafoods.” Global food service provider Aramark Corp., for example, is now working with the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program.

The aquarium’s program recommends which seafood to buy and which to avoid, based on research and evaluation of wild caught and farmed seafood products.