Enjoy!

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Hi, FishPeople Seafood Fans!

We’re Bri and Rob.  We like long walks on remote beaches, exploring new horizons, dancing, fishing, writing, and eating. We’ve just embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime journey through the Pacific Ocean. We left our friends and family, quit our jobs, sold the cars and leased our house in Montana so we could set sail for western islands.

We started from Colon, Panama, aboard a 53-foot steel sailboat, called Llyr, crossing the Panama Canal. We crew with a family of 5 all the way to Tahiti. This voyage will take us across the largest and deepest ocean on earth. The Pacific covers one-third of the planet’s surface – more than all of the world’s landmass combined! – and its fauna feed billions of people.  We’ll have to sail for ~40 days from Panama until we see land again in the Marquesas, the most easterly islands in French Polynesia.

What, you might ask, will we do cooped up on a boat for over a month? Fish, for starters. We’ll be trolling some lures in hopes of hooking a mahi-mahi big enough to feed our crew of 7. And we’ll be paying close attention to wind, waves, and clouds, since our lives will depend upon the sea and the weather.  Llyr is also a research vessel, geared up to study the impacts of climate change on the world’s largest coral reefs, so we’ll be cataloging the chemistry of the water, as well as the species of birds, fish and marine mammals that we meet.

What does this mean for FishPeople fans out there? A direct connection to people on the very same ocean that brings you your tasty seafood treats. In fact, we may even see one of the fish that ends up in a yummy FishPeople pouch!  We’ll be sending photos, videos and first-hand updates on the state of the Pacific’s fishery (and the state of some of those fish in creative meals cooked at sea!).

We only have one backpack each for the next couple of years, but they include all of the necessary tools for surveying the underwater scene: snorkel, mask, fins, fly fishing rod, saltwater flies, pole spear, camera and notebooks.

We can’t wait to share our tales of fish-y adventures with you. Stay tuned here for updates, or follow our blog, On The Horizon Line.com, to learn more about the deep blue depths that supply FishPeople with scrumptious seafood.

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Thanks Bri & Rob!  Can’t wait to learn more!

So, Fishpeople is back in the kitchen again!  While we love our first four flavors – we know that we could riff for days on the theme of “fool-proof fish”!  But how do you know when it’s good? Who is the authority on delicious? Well, we could bring on a celebrity chef, but Jaime was just too British, Emeril already has his own food line … and well, honestly all of them have too much hair gel.

So we did what we do best… we looked around in our back yard.  Gratefully, we have such amazing talent here in the Pacific Northwest and an un-matched passion for indigenous cuisine.  We also believe that the best work happens when we collaborate.  We would like to introduce the Fishpeople Flavor Council:

• Becky Selengut – “Outstanding culinarian” and author of the book Good Fish – for which she was given the Seafood Ambassador Award by the Monterrey Bay Aquarium.  She is not only talented but embodies a person who gives to the place she lives – by using her skills to raise money and capacity at several non-profits.
• Martha Holmberg – After her recent release of the book Modern Sauces, we knew that Martha was the perfect person to join our team! (In our opinion nothing goes together better than fish & sauce!) Her love and knowledge for local edibles culminated in her founding MIX magazine – the go-to periodical on the Portland food scene.
• Cory Schreiber – Cory is, in fact, a NW-style celebrity chef.  The restaurant he opened, Wildwood, is a beacon for those who come to Portland to experience the food that is from this unique land. His insight, skill and recipe suggestions have taken this new round of products to a whole new height.

Like a collection of elders – these wise food ambassadors are helping us to craft not only delicious meals, but a way to use our community to help us create to our highest potential.  Stay tuned – we have ten new recipes on trial – and like a good reality show, not all of them will make it to the end!

We can’t tell you all of our secrets just yet… but I can give you some hints.  Think warm, brothy fishy soups for your rainy NW days when you just can’t make it to the Pho restaurant, hand-crafted pastas for when you need the extra energy to push to the top of your day, and sauces that make you the expert in kitchen or over the grill.

In the fall of 2011, Duncan and a band of merry scientists answered the question – “Where does this river come from?”  I can assure you, they didn’t use Google Earth to answer that question, oh no… they walked there. Or more correctly, they walked from there.  You can read all about this journey in the September 2012 issue of Oregon’s Magazine – 1859. (Or, you could just follow this link.)

Just this past weekend, when the temperatures were in the 30’s, Duncan decided it would be a perfect inaugural day as his new role as a volunteer Native Fish Society River Steward.  So, yes, he went swimming. In the Salmon River.  In January. On his underwater journey, he encountered ice – and a 25 lb Chinook Salmon hanging out.  Native fish found…. Check.

So…  when we say we are “Fishpeople” you can see… we mean it.  Even beyond reason.

Also, with each logo comes a community.  By jumping through the hoops you become the member of a club of other like-minded companies.  Well, we knew from the very beginning that we wanted to surround our selves with the community at B Corp.  Unlike traditional corporations, Certified B Corporations are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their employees, suppliers, community, consumers, and environment.  This resonates deeply with our company which is founded its success on not only its sales targets, but also its impact and it is hard wired through all of our corporate agreements.

B Corporations are a new kind of company, which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.  Fishpeople was created as a way to address a serious problem in our state – the Oregon coast has a depressed economy, at the same time one of our most precious resources, seafood, is almost entirely shipped out onto the commodity market.   We created our company to find a way to keep the added value of a seafood brand in our local community, while educating consumers about the health and environmental benefits of making good seafood choices.  We believe that B Corp is the only certification that truly gets what motivates us as a company.  The certifications are issued by Blabs and there are currently over 660 B Corps worldwide.

We are psyched about the company we are keeping, please take a look at all the BCorps out there and support them with your dollars – these are good people.

So we technically began as a company last January when we filed with the state of Oregon and the Federal Government and got our corporate equivalent of a birth certificate.  As we roll up on our first birthday it’s nice to recall the twinkle in Duncan Berry’s eye that began the momentum of this company.  Our little pouches of fishy goodness are, in fact, an answer-in-the-making to a complex challenge.  How do we support a food system that makes sense for our region and for our customers? 

Starting at the coast and travelling inward through dairy farms and test kitchens, I sit from our office in NE Portland to report the following highlights of the past year:

• January – Fishpeople became an official corporate entity.
• February – Product development began in earnest with initial recipes being tested for final flavor.
• June  - Teammates Karen McRae and Charlie Slate began showing their seafood knowledge by selling gorgeous fresh product at Farmer’s Markets around the Portland Area.
• July – We host a panel of consumers to try out 10 potential recipes to see what they like the best and they chose their four favorites, which became our first for products.
• August – We got accepted into UNFI’s distribution system and welcomed by New Season’s as our first retail partner!
• October – We land on shelves in New Season’s and Whole Foods Markets.  We move in to our new office thanks to our friends at Classic Foods.
• November – We are officially joined by outside investors who also see the potential of our company.
• December – Starting to gain a little press through the Ecotrope Blog, the Oregon Sustainable Business Journal, and more!

We would like to express extreme gratitude for all those that we have worked with over the past year to make this all possible.  2013 is our year to shine.  Stay tuned as we are back in the kitchen scheming up new products to be released before the salmon return!

Sounds like an elementary school riddle… right?  Well, as I’ve moved amongst the hustle bustle of the holiday season – being a “Fishperson” – I’ve wondered more and more about this very question.  While sitting behind the wheel in traffic, it all may seem to be ungraceful – but with a bit of distance, the flow of people through the shopping mall is not too unlike that of a school of fish flowing through the ocean waters.  Does that fin flapping in their face frustrate the same as the glow of brake lights on a dark and rainy afternoon?

Well, my quandary led me to this fascinating scientific experiment published last year.  Apparently there are three basic rules of motion that are followed by any individual – be they human or aquatic in nature: “a short-range repulsive behavior, an intermediate range desire to align with neighbors, and a long-range attraction to the group as a whole.”    Especially during this time of the year of heightened cultural patterns – this all seems to fit in pretty darn well.

But then I wonder – How is a fish like a person?  Not just any person… but the most popular guy of the hour? Santa Claus!  Well, the salmon return to us once a year to bring good tidings and cheer – as well as an amazing amount of healthy, life giving food!  Like the miracle of one man delivering gifts to 170+ million children in one night, the returning of Salmon is equally mindboggling.  So… we decided to mash these two miracles into one new icon – Salmon Claus!

Check out this video we shot here in Portland of our Salmon Claus on the streets at the Fremont Street Festival of Lights!  Our Salmon Claus will be making another appearance this weekend at Pioneer Square… The question is – will he bring his tap shoes?

Well, that is great for dinner for 5.  But what if you want to make enough meals to feed say – 10,000?  And so…. we enter the world of food processors.  The kitchen that makes our sauces doesn’t have the capacity to chop all the ingredients to order, so we looked around for processors that can offer us chopped ingredients so that we can get a sauce together.   Here’s the catch, we haven’t given up on our garden grown ideals, and wanted to know that ingredients are grown in the Pacific Northwest… AND we want to know where it’s grown!  Because we believe that you have the right to know.

Well, to me, 10,000 sounds like a lot.  (That means we need over 150 lbs of chopped red peppers!) Well – I am here to tell ya, in the world of professional choppers – that is nothing.  Not enough to make it worth their while to ensure that the product is locally sourced or tell us where it is grown.   We learned our pesky idealism has no place in a market of that scale.

Also, the seasons were changing and we knew if we wanted to capture summer in our pouches, we would have to act fast!  And so, we took matters into our own hands.  With a small team, some knives and a commercial kitchen – we chopped and froze hundreds of pounds of green onions, bell peppers, fennel, and herbs.  This is how we know exactly where these ingredients came from.  Because the farmer dropped it off at our kitchen and we chopped it all – by hand. We affectionately call that week – Chop-a-thon 2012!

Now, by next year, we hope to find a better solution – which will likely involve some more machines.  So you can, collect these initial pouches for collector’s items. To remind you of the times your friendly Fishpeople literally made your lunch, from scratch.  Just like Grandma.  (Well, not my grandma, she sold cosmetics – but somebody’s grandma did that kinda stuff.)

Till next week!