A 30-year-old nonprofit received a five-year, $7.5 million state grant this year, which will enable the organization to do more to share seafood with Alaskans.
SeaShare has grown from its 1994 beginnings as a small group of Alaska commercial fishermen who distributed bycatch to food banks into an organization that has shared seafood in 20 states this year, said Hannah Lindoff, the Juneau-based executive director.
Though bycatch species still are a part of the organization’s volume, the percentage has declined over the years. Looking at the biggest fisheries ports in Alaska, Kodiak and Dutch Harbor, bycatch fish, which cannot be retained by trawlers, is down to about 5% to 10% of SeaShare’s distribution, she said.
The majority of the program’s frozen and canned fish comes from donations and purchases.
SeaShare received a large donation of frozen pollock blocks from the At-Sea Processors Association, a trade association that represents members of the Alaska pollock and whiting fishing industry.
So far this year, SeaShare has moved about 1.5 million pounds of seafood nationwide, of which about two-thirds has been pollock. Alaska fish comprise about 85% of the total volume, Lindoff said.
That volume is greater than last year’s tally but it’s not a record. “It’s a little slow, because the seafood industry is struggling,” she said.
Those struggles prompted the Alaska Legislature to appropriate state funds to SeaShare so that the nonprofit could purchase more salmon.
Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman, co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said the funding is unparalleled in his 21 years in the Legislature. It was a response to what he described as an “unprecedented market collapse in price across virtually all fisheries,” according to an interview this past spring with Nathaniel Herz, of the Northern Journal.
The market was so oversupplied last year that prices for Southeast pinks and chums dropped as low as 20 cents per pound.
The state money will help SeaShare purchase and ship more fish, buying up Alaska seafood and delivering it statewide. SeaShare expects to go out for bids in mid-November for seafood companies to supply products for the nonprofit’s distribution efforts.
Over the five years of the state funding, seafood acquisition will consume $5 million of the $7.5 million, with the rest going to smaller projects, Lindoff said.
The state grant is a large boost for SeaShare’s budget, which in 2023 included $4.9 million in donated seafood and $937,000 in grants and financial donations.
“We have more leeway to serve communities in Alaska,” Lindoff said of the state funding, such as helping local food pantries handle larger volumes.
For example, the Southeast Alaska Food Bank in Juneau is adding a walk-in freezer to its storage capacity, and SeaShare hopes it can fill it with frozen salmon by early December.
“Food banks do not get very much in seafood donations,” Lindoff said. Frozen salmon can be costly to ship, and freezer space often is at a premium.
The organization has assisted in creating distribution hubs by coordinating the purchase and refurbishment of freezer containers for food banks in Kodiak, St. Paul, Dillingham and Bethel, according to its request for state funding this year.
Smaller communities are included in SeaShare’s plans to spend its state grant.
“Now with funding, we’ll be able to spend more time and money,” Lindoff said. She wants to learn what smaller communities need and how to help them handle more seafood. That could include buying chest freezers for community food pantries. “The idea is to help them have access to Alaska seafood.”
It’s about feeding people, avoiding food waste and making good use of what she called “orphan products,” which could include surplus left over after processors have filled orders. “My favorite thing is when someone finds us and it gets a good home.”
She said food pantry managers can reach out to SeaShare for more information at admin@seashare.org.
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