"Local Food" on a whole new level.

Wow. Does it get better than this?!

For those of us that lack the resources to spend the summer in Bristol Bay, Alaska, here’s an awesome opportunity to reap some of the benefits. I introduce to you, Iliamna Fish Co.’s wild salmon CSA.

(For those of you who don’t know the term, CSA refers to Community Supported Agriculture. The CSA model enables anyone to purchase a share of the farm’s, or in this case fisherman/woman’s catch. The upfront cost provides the member with a set amount of product over a set period of time. For example, a $600 CSA share from a produce farm could provide a weekly box of fresh produce for 6 months. All of a sudden, a week’s worth of local, seasonal and organic produce is in your household for at the cost of $25 a week! That’s a pretty awesome deal, especially come late July and August when the bounty is exploding at the seams. Now, transfer this image of summer’s bounty to the possibility of wild sockeye salmon.)

Iliamna Fish Co. is a small company devoted to catching wild sockeye salmon using the most sustainable methods for the scale of their catch. Unlike industrial fisheries that net tons of fish at the cost of harming other fish species and habitats, Iliamna fishes in shallow water with short nets. Their labor-intensive model ensures a .3% by-catch rate. To explain,

This three-tenths of a percentage by-catch (calculated from our total salmon catch) consists of only starry flounder (platichthys stellatus), an incredibly hardy bottom feeder. There are, literally, no other fish to be caught in shallow water with set net-sized gillnets. Per boat, a 0.3% by-catch is approximately 80 flounders per season, 98% of which we return, alive, to the ocean. (text taken from site.)

Certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, the fish you purchase are knowingly caught and slaughtered employing sustainable methods. The size of the company ensures transparency and as they explain on the site, supporting the workers and the local economy is as important as supporting sustainable fishing.

If I’ve got your attention now and you are as excited as I am about this find, you’ll be even more enthralled by the costs and benefits. One share is 22 pounds and you receive it in the form of 12 individually, vacuum-sealed and flash-frozen filets, weighing in at 1.85 pounds each. Each filet can comfortably feed 5-6 people. The share cost is $198, which amounts to $9 a pound. To compare, New Seasons sells wild sockeye filets that were also frozen at sea for $13 a pound.

My only worry about all this is that I share this opportunity with other Portlanders and then miss out on the chance to get a share. Honestly, this is too good to pass up. Eating wild salmon is a true luxury, and to know where my money is going and what it is supporting makes it far more meaningful to purchase.

So here you have it folks, a sustainbly-caught, wild salmon CSA for the good people of Portland!

Related posts:

1. The Case Against Farmed Salmon
2. Urban farming – a world of possibility
3. The Grass-Fed Manifesto (Part I)
4. Grow(ing) Your Own Food
5. Filling up the freezer

Tags: Bulk purchase, fish, NW cuisine, portland