A3
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2020
Restaurant closures hit seafood industry
Some may turn to
off-the-boat sales
By CASSANDRA
PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Commercial fi sherman
Clint Funderburg should
be on the ocean right now,
catching Dungeness crab on
his fi shing boat, the Wid-
geon. Instead, he’s in his shop
in Newport, and his boat is
parked at the dock — likely
until June.
When crab prices tanked
a few weeks ago, he shifted
gears to his offseason side
gig. So, he’s building a refrig-
eration system for one of the
many fi shing boats that are
stuck at the dock right now.
The coronavirus pandemic
dealt its fi rst blow to the West
Coast fi shing fl eet back in
January, cutting off lucrative
live crab sales to China for
the Chinese New Year.
From there, things only
got worse as the virus spread
across the globe and restau-
rants everywhere closed their
dining rooms. This time of
year, Funderburg would nor-
mally be getting $7 or $8 a
pound for Dungeness crab.
When it got down to just $2
a pound last month, he gave
up.
“The company was start-
ing to lose money,” he said.
“We just quit fi shing, called it
a season. There are very few
people left fi shing. You know,
you basically can’t hardly get
rid of the crab. Normally, we
would crab through May, and
a lot of the guys do. Espe-
cially the smaller boats count
on March, April, May to
really make their seasons.”
The pandemic has him
thinking differently about
what’s worth fi shing for right
now. He’s decided to keep his
boat at the dock until June
when he can catch albacore
tuna — which is more likely
to be canned and sold in gro-
cery stores.
Mandatory restaurant clo-
sures during the corona-
virus pandemic have sent
shock waves through Ore-
gon’s $700 million seafood
industry. The overwhelming
majority of the seafood that
lands on Oregon’s docks gets
eaten in restaurants, and no
one knows when that market
will return. In the meantime,
fi shermen are parking their
boats as seafood prices plum-
met. Seafood processors are
fi lling up their freezers and
selling most of their products
to grocery stores while trying
to minimize layoffs at their
processing plants.
Funderburg said some
seafood options are more
heavily dependent on restau-
rants than others, and that’s
a key factor in his decisions
about fi shing right now.
“Crab is one of those
things that, you know, the
majority of it’s eaten in a
restaurant in a fancy din-
ner when people come to the
coast,” he said.
Normally, he’d go shrimp
fi shing when he was done
crabbing, but he decided
against it this year.
“Because once again,
that’s primarily a restaurant
product,” Funderburg said.
Cassandra Profi ta/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Local Ocean Seafoods owner Laura Anderson, right, hands a seafood meal kit to a customer who signed up for the company’s
new ‘Dock Box’ meal kit.
“You know, the restaurants
are shut down and nobody’s
even sure what shape the
restaurants are gonna be in
when they open back up.
How many restaurants are
going to survive this, and
how many people are gonna
eat expensive seafood din-
ners out on the town when
things change?”
Seafood restaurants
close, retool
The same kinds of ques-
tions are looming over Local
Ocean Seafoods, a restaurant
and fi sh market on Newport’s
bayfront.
Owner Laura Anderson
is standing inside her restau-
rant and greeting customers
on the sidewalk from behind
a face mask. Behind her,
employees are snapping open
to-go bags and racing to fi ll
them with food.
“Hiya! Hi Theresa!” she
calls out, pulling out a clip-
board with a spreadsheet of
customer names. “Is it under
Bill’s name?”
Ever since Gov. Kate
Brown ordered the closure of
dine-in restaurants, Anderson
has been scrambling to set up
a new way to sell the seafood
her business depends on. She
scans the sheet of customer
orders for the new meal kit
they’re calling a “Dock Box.”
“William, maybe? We
have this sorted by fi rst name,
which is ridiculous,” Ander-
son says.
They’re offering the meal
kit for pickup or delivery,
drawing on their existing
customer base to keep some
semblance of a business
going while the restaurant
and fi sh market are closed.
They spent the morning cut-
ting tuna, making crab cakes
and packing the makings of
a seafood dinner into zip-
lock bags and cups with lids
that they warned customers
weren’t performing as well
as they’d hoped.
AFTER RESTAURANTS
WERE FORCED TO CLOSE, PACIFIC
SEAFOOD, THE LARGEST SEAFOOD
PROCESSOR ON THE WEST COAST,
TURNED ITS BUSINESS UPSIDE
DOWN TO PRIORITIZE GROCERY
STORE MARKETS.
“It seemed so simple,
just put together a little meal
kit. How hard could it be?”
Anderson said. “But nor-
mally, I don’t know, you’d
take a long time, maybe a
month or two, to set some-
thing like this up. So it’s been
intense.”
Anderson said she basi-
cally started up a whole new
business in a matter of days,
choosing a product and fi g-
uring out how to package
and market it after she closed
the popular business she had
been running.
“I called the staff in and I
had to lay off all of our dining
room service staff,” she said.
“That was a hard day.”
Now, Anderson is care-
fully measuring exactly how
much seafood she should buy
from fi shing boats so that
nothing goes to waste. And
she’s thinking about ways to
expand her offerings to keep
some employees working
and cover expenses like rent
and health care.
“I always remind my staff
and tell them when I’m train-
ing them that we’re not just
another fi sh and chips joint.
To me that was really clear in
the face of this crisis,” Ander-
son said. “Our whole prem-
ise for Local Ocean is that we
have access to this fresh, wild
Oregon seafood and that peo-
ple want it. We have a unique
access to that because of the
relationships we have with
fi shermen at the docks. And
that hasn’t changed, that’s
still there. Even though our
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have the relationships.”
Direct marketing offers
hope
Most of Oregon’s seafood
market has shifted to grocery
stores for now.
But fi shermen and sea-
food processors say without
knowing when restaurants
will reopen, they’re hoping to
do their own version of what
Local Ocean is doing now:
marketing seafood directly
to people who can cook it up
and eat it at home.
Glen Spain, Northwest
regional director for the
Pacifi c Coast Federation of
Fishermen’s Associations,
said selling seafood directly
off the boat could be a good
option for fi shermen right
now but it’s a lot for a small
fi shing business to take on.
“Markets are disappear-
ing,” he said. “Between 60%
and 80% of our markets were
restaurant-based, particularly
for smaller local boats that
delivered to the local com-
munity. That’s a big problem.
So, people are doing every-
thing they can to develop
new markets.”
Congress recently appro-
priated $300 million in disas-
ter assistance for the sea-
food industry in its $2 trillion
COVID-19 relief package
last month, but Spain and
others have said the indus-
try is going to need a lot
more to sustain seafood mar-
kets during and after the
pandemic.
“Spreading that out over
an entire fi shery with tens
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of thousands of people all of
whom are losing money is not
going to be enough,” he said.
“It’s gonna be barely enough
to keep us alive but it won’t
support our infrastructure.”
After restaurants were
forced to close, Pacifi c Sea-
food, the largest seafood pro-
cessor on the West Coast,
turned its business upside
down to prioritize grocery
store markets.
Tony Dal Ponte, direc-
tor of government affairs for
Pacifi c Seafood and a member
of the company’s COVID-19
response team, said his com-
pany had to make some lay-
offs and reconsider what kind
of fi sh it should buy from the
fi shing fl eet.
“When you close the
restaurants or signifi cantly
limit restaurant demand, we
have to change what we’re
processing, what we’re dis-
tributing and who we’re
talking to,” he said. “We’ve
been partnering with our
retailers on ready-to-eat and
ready-to-cook products that
are easier for families that are
sheltered at home to cook and
make for themselves.”
Last week, the company
launched its own online sea-
food market to deliver sea-
food directly to consumers
and has seen people order-
ing seafood not just for them-
selves but also as gifts for
friends and family.
Fishermen are used to
dealing with uncertainty,
according to Nancy Fitzpat-
rick with the Oregon Salmon
Commission. But with this
year’s salmon season com-
ing up, she said, it’s unclear
what market there will be
for any salmon that comes
in and if there isn’t whether
the salmon can be frozen or
canned and sold later.
“There are a lot more
unknowns than a typical sea-
son, unfortunately,” Fitzpat-
rick said. “Every year you
have to wonder: Do we get
a season? Is the price there?
Now we add no markets. You
won’t know until the fi rst
boat comes across the dock.”
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