Increased state investment in marketing would help the battered Alaska seafood industry seize an opportunity to improve sales within the United States, the head of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute told state lawmakers.
Jeremy Woodrow, ASMI’s executive director, attempted to make his organization’s case to the state Senate Finance Committee for $10 million in state funding.
The money could be put to work to promote Alaska seafood at a time when there is no competition in the domestic market from Russian seafood, which was banned from the U.S. by then-President Joe Biden in December 2023, Woodrow said at the March 5 committee hearing.
Cheap Russian seafood that glutted markets is now depleted in the U.S., leaving a $452 million hole in the U.S. domestic market, Woodrow told the committee.
“It really provides opportunity for all of our seafood,” he said.
However, other seafood-producing countries, like Chile, Norway and Iceland, could also take advantage of the same opportunity, he said. “This is not a given to us. We need to compete for this marketplace.”
The competition is well funded. The Norwegian Seafood Council, which is financed with fees levied on the industry’s seafood exports, has an annual budget of more than $45 million.
Norway exported more than 2.7 billion pounds of farmed salmon last year, according to the council’s website.
If the Alaska Legislature appropriates the $10 million in one-time money, it would help bring ASMI’s annual budget to about $22 million for each year in an aggressive three-year marketing period that the organization has planned. That would be a record high for the organization, Woodrow said.
Typically, half or more of ASMI’s annual funding comes from a tax that the seafood industry levies on itself. Federal funding, available only for international marketing efforts, typically accounts for most of the rest.
But because of depressed prices across the industry, the coming year’s contribution from the seafood industry is set to be about $3 million less than this year’s total, Woodrow said.
Alaska salmon prices took a dive in 2022 and 2023, cutting deeply into fishermen’s and processors’ earnings. “We are still reeling from those really tough years.”
The state has contributed in past years to seafood marketing efforts, including with $5 million during the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2024. For the five prior years, the state’s general fund provided no money to ASMI.
The Legislature appropriated $10 million for ASMI last year, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed the funding, saying that the agency had not provided details for a marketing plan. This year, the governor included $10 million in his budget request to lawmakers.
However, last year’s veto still rankles some members of the Legislature.
The same opportunity to replace Russian fish in the U.S. market existed a year ago, said Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman, Senate Finance Committee co-chair. Dunleavy’s decided to veto the appropriation “for whatever reason that didn’t make much business sense to me, quite frankly, to watch that opportunity go by,” Stedman said at the hearing.
Stedman is a member of a legislative task force that recently made several recommendations for helping the ailing Alaska seafood industry. Those recommendations include increased funding for marketing.
However, the opportunity to replace Russian fish in the U.S. market could be short-lived. President Donald Trump’s administration is moving toward lifting sanctions on Russia, opening the door to resumed exports of seafood to the U.S.
One committee member, Anchorage Sen. James Kaufman, raised that possibility.
Alaska could lose that edge “if things with the Russian situation change rapidly and suddenly we kind of move along from the Ukraine situation that drove the political issues around the marketplace,” Kaufman said.
Woodrow acknowledged the risk.
“If that ban were to be lifted, it would create a lot of turmoil for the Alaska seafood industry because of the ability to compete with those low (Russian seafood) prices,” he said.
While U.S. consumers have a marked preference for wild fish and see Alaska fish as a product worth a premium, price remains critical, he said. Even for highly regarded Alaska seafood, “consumers are willing to come up only so much on price,” he said. Shoppers might pay an extra 10% for Alaska seafood, but not 30%, he said, stressing that Alaska fish has to be priced competitively.
Larry Persily of the Sentinel contributed reporting for this story. The Alaska Beacon is an independent, donor-funded news organization. Alaskabeacon.com.
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