Spotlight On a Community-Supported Fishery
Skipper Otto, a community-supported fishery in Vancouver, is impacting how seafood is valued—one catch at a time.
It’s Thursday afternoon, and a steady stream of people are arriving at Fisherman’s Wharf in Vancouver B.C. to pick up grocery bags full of frozen lingcod, salmon, or halibut. They are just a few of the customers who sign on for a year’s subscription to Skipper Otto, a Community-Supported Fishery (CSF).
“I am so excited I can have this at home,” says Allison Hepworth who just picked up her bag of fish. Knowing how and where the fish was caught makes a difference to Hepworth. Each package of seafood has a picture of the fisher who caught it, and where and when it was caught. It reminds members that when you become a member of Skipper Otto, you not only get delicious seafood, but you have played a role in supporting the livelihoods of small independent fishers.
Founded in 2008, by Sonia and Shaun Strobel, Skipper Otto is named for Shaun’s Dad, Otto. When Otto began fishing in the 1960s, there were thousands of independent small-scale fishers harvesting seafood along B.C.’s coast, and making a good living. Over time, changes in government regulations have allowed massive factory ships owned by large corporations to gobble up fish, which increased the length of the supply chain. In the United States, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that 70 percent to 85 percent of seafood in stores is imported. Imported seafood can either mean it was harvested from global waters, or caught in the US, but exported to other countries for processing and then returned to the US. This creates a lack of transparency for the consumer on the origin of their food and adds up to lower wages paid to local harvesters.
It’s also risky relying on imported seafood. Shocks such as extreme weather or geopolitical events can disrupt global supply routes and threaten the ability of seafood to be safely traded on a global scale.
“The fishing way of life is endangered, and local fishers are losing access to markets,” says Sonia Strobel.
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This is where a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) model comes in. Or, in this case, a CSF. Similar to how a CSA model invites members to invest in a local farm and purchase produce before it’s harvested, a CSF model also pre-sells seafood before it’s caught, inviting members to invest in the livelihood of independent fishers.
The pre-sale of seafood removes the uncertainty as to whether they will have a buyer for their seafood and the price they will receive for the catch. Along with guaranteed income, the nature of a CSF and a local food system allows fishers to pivot their catch to match what is available and abundant. “If one year the sockeye salmon return is low and Coho salmon are abundant, then, that is what Skipper Otto members are offered,” explains Strobel.
Skipper Otto’s 8,000 members are supplied sustainability caught fish from 45 fishing families. This growing success over the past decade and a half has made Strobel a strong advocate for independent fisheries, something put to the test in 2021. For decades, independent harvesters in B.C. have frozen tubs of spot prawns in salt water while at sea to preserve them until they return to port.
Just before the start of the 2021 spot prawn season, a reinterpretation of a government regulation that all catches must be readily available for inspection caused Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to ban the sale of frozen-at-sea spot prawns. Frozen prawns, it was argued, weren’t readily available for inspection. This made little sense to Strobel or independent fishers, especially as they say thawing a tub of prawns took minutes. Strobel and the Skipper Otto team say the policy had the potential to collapse an industry worth $30 million to $50 million annually, and take away the livelihoods of independent spot prawn fishers, perhaps permanently. Strobel turned to Skipper Otto’s vast membership, asking them to sign petitions and write letters in protest. Skipper Otto’s influence played a role in the government reversing the policy.
Continuing to advocate, Strobel has spoken in front of Canada’s House of Commons and sits as a volunteer on the executive committee of Local Catch Network, a North American hub that advocates for local and community-based seafood systems. Through Local Catch’s mentorship program, Strobel was connected with Cadena Ragsdale, owner of Kauai Fresh Fish in Hawaii. When Ragsdale started her business in 2022, it was hard to find fresh local fish.
“We quickly realized there was a demand for fresh local fish and a transparency in where the fish came from,” says Ragsdale. As in B.C., independent fishers don’t always receive fair prices for their catches. That same story can be heard across North America.
In northern Saskatchewan, Indigenous fishers are losing markets for their freshwater catches of walleye and pike. Skipper Otto hopes to add these fishers as suppliers, offering guaranteed sales and fair market value. In Nunavut, Inuit lake fishers drive out on skidoos in the middle of winter to frozen freshwater lakes, drill holes and, using gill nets, pull in by hand their catch of Arctic char. The fish is processed, frozen and available to Skipper Otto members.
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Despite expansion, Strobel doesn’t see Skipper Otto as competition with the industrial fishery. “None of us wants to catch the last fish,” she says. What Skipper Otto offers is insurance that fresh local seafood remains available and there is a robust network of small-scale fishers to catch it.
Back at Fisherman’s Wharf, Hepworth completes her order with freshly harvested mussels. At home, she will pull the frozen fish out of her freezer, as needed, and pan-fry it with butter and lemon for her family.
“We are reconnecting people to food,” says Strobel.
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