Family of passionate Alaskan fishermen who want to share the good of Wild Alaskan Salmon with conscious consumers through our Co-Op.
Since we started commercial fishing in the 1960s we have contracted with a large, corporate cannery to process all the salmon that we catch during the season. Our passion for what we do extends beyond just catching the fish and passing it off, so we decided to do more. We established the Willbros Salmon Co. co-op in 2014 and it has slowly grown every year. We love knowing our customers and connecting them straight to the source of their food. We believe in the quality of our product and we strive every year for excellence in our processing and distribution. We are ready to grow! In order for us to have the ability to expand our distribution we need to increase our capacity for processing more of the salmon we catch.
Bristol Bay is the model for sustainable fisheries around the world because of the strict way it is managed to allow an adequate number of salmon to spawn for sustainable returns. Due to the low impact way we fish we have 0% bycatch and we work hard to minimize our external environmental effect. We are proud to support one of the last wild, sustainable fisheries in the world and are dedicated to ensure this high standard of ecological balance. Every season we catch an average of 125,000 pounds of Wild Sockeye Salmon. With our very limited spare time and resources we are able to process around 2,500 pounds for our Willbros Salmon Co. co-op and have to sell the rest to the corporate cannery where the majority is exported to other countries.
We want to do more, which is why we are coming to you! With the funds raised through this Kickstarter we will have the ability to increase our processing ability by purchasing a mechanical Filet machine and hiring employees to run the processing plant. By donating to our cause you are allowing us to create jobs and increase our capacity from 2,500 pounds to around 8,000 pounds of the highest quality, wild caught Alaskan Salmon. This means we get to share even more and spread our love for what we do and this amazing specie even farther!
We love sharing the beauty of Alaska with others, which is why we made our premium reward a 5 day trip into the wild Alaskan bush for two! Come see our operation for yourself, witness the largest concentration of Grizzly Bears at Katmai National Park, and catch a King Salmon on the river with a guided sport fishing tour!
We are more than happy to answer any questions that you may have and would love to hear from you!
As with all grand ideas and businesses, no doubt there will be some bumps along the road. We are completely dedicated to our business and way of life because we have so much love for it. One challenge will be expanding our marketing skills to secure a larger market for our increased production. We are fishermen, our technical abilities include navigating tangle of web on the ocean in a storm, but we have learned a lot over the past several years and continue to explore and learn about the best ways to share our passion with others. We have virtually a limitless opportunity for growth! As previously stated we catch around 125,000lb per year and our projected processing capacity once we’ve reached our goal of installing a filet machine and expanding our production is maximized at about 100,000 pounds per year. We have the ability to catch more fish ourselves, but we would ultimately like to work with neighboring fishermen who have become dear friends and have the ability to offer them a better price per pound for their fish than they are getting from the large corporate canneries. And because of the sustainability of this particular fishery, we are confidant that we can continue to produce the highest quality product for a long time to come and hopefully pass it down through many more Williams family generations.