The Port Alden Fishing Co-op has signed a deal to sell a portion of its catch directly to four restaurants in town, cutting out the regional distributor that has bought nearly all of its members' fish for the past two decades. Co-op president Walt Ferreira said the arrangement should mean better prices for the boats and fresher fish reaching local kitchens within hours instead of days.
Under the old system, most of the co-op's daily catch was trucked to a processing facility forty miles inland, then shipped back out to distributors before some of it returned to restaurants in Port Alden itself. Ferreira said that round trip could add two to three days between a fish coming off the boat and reaching a plate, even for restaurants a few blocks from the dock.
"We were catching fish here, sending it away, and buying some of it back a few days later," Ferreira said. "It never made sense once you actually laid it out."
What changes for the boats
The four restaurants involved, including the Ledger House and Compass Grill, have agreed to buy set daily quantities of whatever the co-op's boats bring in that morning, at a price roughly 15 percent higher than what the distributor was paying per pound. Ferreira said the co-op will still sell the bulk of its catch through the distributor, since local restaurant demand can't absorb everything eleven boats bring in on a good day.
Compass Grill owner Denise Okwuosa said the deal lets her put the boat name and catch date on the menu, something she couldn't do reliably before. "Customers ask where the fish came from all the time. Now I can actually tell them and mean it," she said.
Ferreira said the co-op plans to add a small dockside stand next summer so residents can buy directly as well, pending approval from the town's health department.
