Tupperware: Bruce Gore was a salmon fisherman in Alaska in the 1970s and he built a freezer on his boat. Bruce’s wife Kathy and the boat formed a triad, so they called the company Triad Fisheries. Bruce cleaned the fish thoroughly and froze it. His big idea was to freeze it to at least minus 20 to minus 30 degrees before it got rigor mortis, where it actually froze solid. So he was one of the inventors of super freezing salmon.

Bruce used a spatula to remove all the blood from the belly veins of the fish. At that time, a young man in Alaska was attending a medical fishing training course and taught Bruce how to use a medical catheter to suck all the blood out of the fish. He took the head off the fish, stabbed the aorta at the top of the neck and then made a cut in the spine just behind the anal cavity of the fish. This forces all the blood out of the veins and you get a completely bloodless carcass. This all happens in the first five minutes after the fish is caught. Then all the sea lice on the outside of the fish are removed and the fish comes below deck, is placed on aluminum trays in front of the evaporator and spread out so it is nice and straight. The bellies are wide open and you can just look inside and see this beautiful fish.

In 1980, Julia Child came to Seattle to film her TV series “French Chef.” Everyone there told her to meet Bruce because she wanted to do a show about salmon. So she talked to Bruce, and when she saw his fish, she couldn’t believe the quality. His fish was the only product she ever branded. She said, “If you could get a salmon from Bruce Gore, you would be rich.”

After that, Bruce’s business took off and he was able to grow his fleet to eight boats – all using his own process. When Beth and I bought the business in 2008, Bruce was 68. He wanted out of the business and I had shown interest. So we bought the business from him and grew it to 16 boats in our heyday. But over the years we’ve downsized as we got older. My wife doesn’t want to work as much anymore. When we decided it was time to retire, we started looking for a buyer and eventually found Alaska Glacier.

SeafoodSource: What is your background? You said you felt confident selling any kind of fish. Did you do that before you bought the business?

Tupperware: I started at Port Chatham (Smoked Seafood) when I was 17, which was owned by two Norwegian brothers at the time, but is now owned by Trident… That was my start. Then I worked for Icicle Seafoods, running a big processing vessel in Bristol Bay. I’ll never forget going to Bristol Bay. The first couple of days in late June, the sockeye salmon came out of the freshwater like little balls and green, but they were still really nice fish. By the fourth day of the run, all of our fish were crap. They were all just wimps.

There were just no standards in the state of Alaska. That was a real incentive for me to work with Bruce because he cared about standards and quality. I ended up working in processing at Orca Bay. When a sales position opened up there, I jumped at the opportunity. Another guy helped me because I was so new to the business and he set me up with 12-ounce and 6-ounce lines. By God’s grace, I was able to sell those very well and build quite a business selling all over America. That gave me a lot of contacts that helped me when we eventually acquired Triad.

SeafoodSource: How did you get to know the Alaska Glacier?

Tupperware: Alaska Glacier also catches a lot of trolling ice fishing and a little bit of frozen fish. The business is really unique. We don’t pay our fishermen up front. We don’t tell them prices. When I bought the business from Bruce, I actually had to go out and meet these fishermen and they had to weigh in on whether they would give me their fish because there’s nothing in writing. Everything is done with a handshake and a lot of pride and trust. We usually start paying them in September so they’re all independent and we send them maybe $5,000 to $10,000 (€4,500 to €9,000) a month until we pay them off. But we don’t set the price until February or March when we’ve sold all the catch and know exactly what the catch is and how much we can give the fishermen. But we’ve always managed to give them more money than pretty much anyone else.

When I bought the business from Bruce, I told him, “I can market fish. I can sell fish anywhere, to anyone, especially this fish with the great story and unmatched quality. But I don’t want to have anything to do with these fishermen.” He assured me that I wouldn’t have to either, saying, “They’ll just give you the fish. They’ll trust you, you’ll sell it, and you’ll give them as much money as you can and still stay in business.” So that’s how we’ve always done it, and the reason we chose to work with Alaska Glacier is because they’ve always treated their fishermen very well. They have a really good reputation with all the boats. When my boats heard we were going to make this move, they were just thrilled. Besides being family owned and having a great reputation, they set their own prices rather than following others and treating their fishermen fairly.

SeafoodSource: So you think your fishermen are in good hands?

Tupperware: I know they are because they have a choice of who they sell to and we already have boats signed up and fishing for them. I got a call yesterday from another guy who fished for us two years ago who said he wanted to start supplying him; more are coming as we speak. They’re really excited to work with those guys up there. I think we found the right group and that’s what kept us from not selling sooner. It was just great finding the right people.

SeafoodSource: Where and when do your boats fish?

Tupperware: They all fish in Southeast Alaska. The troll fishery stretches from Prince of Wales Island right on the Canadian border to Yakutat. Usually the first kingfish catch is in July and we are on what we call the open water fishing grounds in the Gulf of Alaska off Yakutat. The second kingfish catch they are usually further south near Prince of Wales Island. We also fish south of Baranof Island and have caught quite a bit in that area just offshore.

SeafoodSource: How does the fish get from the boats to the market?

Tupperware: We’re basically getting a finished product from our fishermen who are fishing anywhere from 20 to 50 miles offshore these days because of the warmer water temperatures. Out there, we’re catching the fish when they’re just schooling up, so their bellies are really fat and there aren’t many eggs; the fish are absolutely clean. They’re still actively feeding and were caught right at their peak. We’ve done tests on our coho salmon and found that they have more omega-3 fatty acids than a Copper River sockeye salmon swimming up a 1,000-mile river. Our fish are all caught by line and rod.

We have a contract with Sitka Salmon Seafoods, and they’ve done a great job. The boats come in, Sitka Salmon puts the fish in bins, and we send it to Commercial Cold Storage in Mount Vernon, Washington. Then we sort it, package it, and label it. Bruce Gore was the first to label fish in 1978, putting a label on each fish individually, saying which boat caught it and where it came from. It was the very first salmon traceability program, and a lot of people picked that up; we still do it today. If you call, we can give you a picture of the boat, the people on it, and the date and location of each fish being caught. A side benefit of labeling is that it keeps our fishermen following our rules and the way we expect them to deliver quality fish.

SeafoodSource: Who buys this fish, who pays you the premium and where do you sell it?

Tupperware: We sell to many restaurants, and we sold to…