Producer
Sea to Shore Seafood Co.
Address: 4283 VAN HORN LN Bellingham, WA, 98226
Phone: 907-518-1390
About Us
Chelsea of Sea to Shore Seafood is a 3rd generation fisherman. She was on a boat at three days old and grew up watching her single mom try and support three girls on a limited income consisting of summer earnings from a 32’ southeast Alaska gillnet boat. Chelsea worked hard alongside her mom and took note of how she cleaned and sold her fish to a distributor in Seattle to try and make ends meet. After trying multiple fisheries, at 18, Chelsea decided to start running her own commercial fishing operation. “I took the knowledge I learned from my mom, I leased a boat, took out a loan, bought a southeast drift gillnet permit and started direct marketing a portion of my catch to a distributor in Seattle.”
Flash forward 5 years, Pete (then a diesel mechanic in the coast guard) came into the picture. He had an outside view and could see what needed to change to make a direct marketing business profitable. They piled all their savings (and then some) to buy the boat they could afford which was built in 1964 and needed a complete gut and rebuild. Luckily, Pete had the knowledge and drive to design, fabricate, and construct the boat redo.?
“We have started, failed, and had to reinvent our business more times than not, but quitting was never an option. We have been working on growing our business which has led us to expand into neighboring farmers markets, home deliveries and wholesale accounts.?It is also very important (and personal) to help small scale fishermen have a chance at making a living in this career. For the new generations of fisherman starting from the bottom with the hopes of running their own operation, we have a steep hill to climb.”
Flash forward 5 years, Pete (then a diesel mechanic in the coast guard) came into the picture. He had an outside view and could see what needed to change to make a direct marketing business profitable. They piled all their savings (and then some) to buy the boat they could afford which was built in 1964 and needed a complete gut and rebuild. Luckily, Pete had the knowledge and drive to design, fabricate, and construct the boat redo.?
“We have started, failed, and had to reinvent our business more times than not, but quitting was never an option. We have been working on growing our business which has led us to expand into neighboring farmers markets, home deliveries and wholesale accounts.?It is also very important (and personal) to help small scale fishermen have a chance at making a living in this career. For the new generations of fisherman starting from the bottom with the hopes of running their own operation, we have a steep hill to climb.”
Practices
“We offer a truly tracible seafood product (every piece of fish is able to be traced back to the vessel who harvested it) The Alaska department of fish and game monitors our catches and fish stock numbers and bases our weekly fishing openers dependent on the health of the salmon returns. We are also monitored and put on gear restrictions when needed, where they will monitor the size of mesh we use and times of day we can fish in order to avoid certain species of salmon.”