Summer is here! We are celebrating the sunshine, warmth, and the ocean’s bounty with friends and family and hope you are too. I am writing to give you an important update about Real Good Fish.

We started Real Good Fish to provide a wide variety of our ocean’s bounty - from big, delicious, and expensive species to small, delicious, and inexpensive species. The last several years have been challenging due to the closure of inexpensive fisheries such as sardines, the absence of albacore, record high salmon prices and low quantities, and the retirement of many fishermen we worked with in our formative years.

Additionally, two of our most popular west coast fisheries, king salmon and Dungeness crab, have seen huge ups and downs the past few years. After missing almost the entire 2015-2016 crab season due to algae blooms, we were happy to deliver an abundance of healthy Dungeness this season. However, the first half of king salmon season was very slow this year. Things picked up in late June, so we hope that the season reopening in August will bring higher numbers. Alaskan salmon is now on the market and should help bring prices down. Even so, the price of king salmon will be higher than in any previous season. This is a trend for many local species, including halibut, lingcod, and rockfish - all due to increased demand and lack of supply, plus higher costs for fishermen. Overall, we and our fishermen are competing in a more difficult market.

To make our service as affordable as possible, in the past year we’ve expanded our share sizes and offered discounted prices for prepayments of 8 or more deliveries. However, to adapt to our current environment we need to raise our share prices to $24 for a full share, $14 for a half share, and $33 for a large share, beginning on September 1, 2017. With this share price increase and the anticipated lower salmon prices in August, we hope to be able to deliver salmon as a share in the second half of the season.

Another bright spot is that beginning on September 1, all our opt outs will be FREE, a shift that is made possible by our growth and dealing in greater volumes. To continue that trajectory, we are busy forming new relationships with local fishermen who use sustainable catch methods. The lack of supply in some fisheries isn’t that the fish aren’t there, but that there are fewer fishermen in our community. Your support for our CSF can help reverse that trend and is crucial to a younger generation of fishermen, who are facing huge financial barriers to entry, such as exorbitant permit costs. Our Bay2Tray program also addresses this by inspiring a new generation of ocean stewards and sustainable fishermen, while creating a market for an underutilized species. There are other bright spots as well. We just got news that our fishermen will be getting more access to previously closed areas, and larger limits for lingcod.

As we grow, support for sustainable fishing grows, so thank you for all the ways you participate and spread the word! Together we are a vital part of thriving local communities, ocean health, and sustainable fisheries. As always, please feel free to reach out to us with any questions.

With gratitude for you, our community, and our shared values,

Alan Lovewell
CEO and Cofounder