By Margaret Bauman
Alaska Journal of Commerce

An increasing hunger for nutritional foods in domestic and international food aid programs bodes well for Alaska’s fishing industry. Annual canned salmon sales are roughly $6 million to $7 million, and canned herring has recently been introduced.

“Everyone is looking for higher nutrition,” said Bruce Schactler, a Kodiak salmon and herring fisherman, who is also the food aid coordinator for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute in Juneau. “It’s not how much you feed them, but what you feed them.”

More people are looking for higher nutrition, and canned salmon is the only animal protein on the grocery shelves in food aid programs associated with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he said.

In 2008, distribution of Alaska seafood into food aid programs was about equally divided between domestic and foreign aid programs, he said.

To boost overall sales, Schactler and Kevin Adams, another commercial fisherman who serves on the ASMI board, will give a demonstration in April at an international food aid conference hosted by the Foreign Agriculture Service, within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

ASMI is also working with Global Food and Nutrition, a private Washington, D.C.-based firm with global connections that provides networking to potential buyers.

The demand for canned Alaska pink and chum salmon has the economic bonus of keeping canned salmon prices up. Prices for Alaska canned salmon, like other commodities, are affected by supply and demand.

For the past two years, processors of Alaska canned salmon have sold about 1,348 tons - about 135,000 cases - through the food aid programs, Schactler said.

That’s significant, said Gunnar Knapp, a fisheries economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage. “If the numbers are correct, this program is taking 5 percent to 10 percent of the pink and chum pack, enough to make a market difference.”

Without the food aid program, the processors would have had another 135,000 cans of salmon to sell, and typically the only way to sell leftover inventory is to lower the price. The food aid sales are a good thing for the industry, and likely have an effect on the price to processors and potentially the fishermen who harvest the salmon, Knapp said.

The new push for canned herring stands to boost the value of herring sales in Alaska while helping AIDS victims in Uganda, Schactler said.

People facing critical health issues, like AIDS, react better to antiviral drugs provided through health aid programs if they have better nutrition, he said.

A 20-ton container filled with canned chum and pink salmon and canned herring soon will be shipped to Uganda, where medical and food aid workers will watch to see how it affects the nutritional profile of those who eat it.

“The herring doesn’t have quite as much protein as salmon, but it has over double the omega 3s,” Schactler said. “It will be very interesting project.”

Fish for this program is a joint effort of ASMI, the state of Alaska, an unidentified non-governmental organization and four major Alaska seafood processors.

“Today’s food aid clients are tomorrow’s commercial clients,” Schactler said. “It is significant. You can look in many, many countries that are today commercial markets. A few years ago they were food aid markets.

“It is a significant value to the industry, another market they can sell product into, and you can’t have too many markets or too many outlets. The amount of support that the suppliers in the industry have as a whole for this program shows that,” he said.

Schactler hopes the demonstration projects on canned Alaska herring will prove as successful as those of canned salmon.

“Canned herring and canned sardines have been used in the world food program for several years, through donations from other countries.” Schactler said. “In Alaska we have a lot of herring, but the herring fishery in Alaska has been primarily for the roe. The market for herring roe fell on its face some time ago and has not recovered. We are going to give the herring fishery another try, possibly next spring with maybe a larger demonstration program, with several containers rather than a few thousand pounds. We will see how it grows, and if there is a market for canned Alaska herring.”

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.