Citizen Salmon Aaron Sechler; Getting His Alaskan Fish to Restaurants
The Gorton fisherman he’s not. But I whenever we spoke, the image of a gnarled wind-swept chap standing at the helm in a yellow rain slicker kept popping in my head. Aaron Sechler is a supplier of Alaskan salmon and halibut to restaurants and direct to consumers via his version of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) that he refers to as a CSF (Community Supported Fishery). He’s leveraged his relationships with some of the boat captains who follow sustainable fishing practices in the waters off the rugged Southern Alaskan coast and river basins like Copper River to be a buyer of their just caught products.
We talked about the fish supply chain, from water to table, and how he’s trying to manage it now in the midst of the Coronavirus shutdown. We touched on how getting product to market is now and what it will be like as things start to loosen up and get back to the “new normal”, whatever that will be.
Along the way, his open and generous nature gave us a peek at his life that took him from the restaurant business of the Twin Cities to the bays and inlets of Alaska.