Seafood Connection
Our History
Seafood
Connection History |
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| The Seafood Connection was born out
of the near collapse of the cranberry industry. My father had purchased
a cranberry farm in 1978. At that time he was both commercial fishing
and farming. Over time, the cranberry industry got better, so he gave
up fishing and worked at farming full time. In the late 1990's the cranberry
industry nearly collapsed. Prices dropped by nearly 90%. Many farmers
lost their farms while industry executives padded their pocketbooks.
My father once again had to start commercial fishing to provide for his family and make his farm payments. He bought a commercial salmon troller and started fishing again. Fishing turned out to be very good for the next couple of years, but the price was unfair and insulting. The large corporate buyers only paid 50 cents per pound for incredible quality salmon. I talked to him about it and decided to get the necessary licenses and do the paperwork so that he could sell his salmon right off the dock. I ran the idea by my friend Larry, and he suggested that since I was a crab fisherman, we could sell my crab in the winter until salmon season started. We hooked up an old tote on my dad's boat and filled it with my catch of Dungeness Crab. Larry sold the crab off my dad's boat while I was out crab fishing. Larry talked with his uncle about buying some of his Spot Prawns. Most of the available prawns were exported, and very few people had licenses to fish for them. We figured that it would be a good thing to sell, since they are excellent eating and quite popular. So at that point, the Seafood Connection consisted of Dungeness Crab and Spot Prawns. We were sitting down on the boat selling crab one day when we discussed having a permanent place to sell our seafood. We thought about getting a boat, but we thought it would be ideal if we got an old barge and built a shed on it. Before long, Larry found a barge and we put up what was supposed to be a shed, but ended up being a very nice looking, clean little seafood store. Over time, people started requesting many various kinds of seafood. Our inventory grew and grew. We started carrying almost every kind of local seafood and several other seafood products. The seafood store is now quite popular, and our manager Rich has been with us since 2003. My mom continues to work at the store in the busy summer months as well. In 2005 in response to our customers, we updated the web site and began shipping seafood all over the country. Things have been going well, and we are very pleased with the positive feedback that we regularly get from our customers. We sincerely hope that we can provide you with some high quility "fresh from the boat" seafood that you and your family and friends can enjoy. Kevin Marks |
updated 2-16-2006