Skipper Otto

Once you become a member you have access to “the Dock,” our online seafood store. Simply log in, and choose a pick-up location and a pick-up date window that works for you. Order whatever seafood you like. Once your order is ready, we’ll remind you to visit our Community Partner pick-up location anytime over a few days to get your order.

At our home location at False Creek Fishermen’s Wharf in Vancouver, members also have the option to shop without a pre-order during our Thursday pick-ups between 3 -7 pm.

We primarily carry fillets and portion sizes that make meal prep easy. Most of our seafood is flash-frozen, which keeps it at peak quality and makes it convenient to always have on hand. The majority of our portion sizes are roughly 1 lb (454g) but we also carry a selection of member favourites in the ½ lb (227g) range. We also offer whole frozen salmon, various frozen shellfish options, smoked salmon varieties, and canned seafood (and kelp!) too. At our False Creek Fishermen’s Wharf location in Vancouver, we offer live mussels most of the year, as well as live oysters and live Dungeness crabs on occasion. Visit our products page for more details.

Our current prices can be found on each product page. Note that prices do fluctuate occasionally but we aim to keep prices as stable as possible since our seafood is flash-frozen and less affected by short-term market price changes. Because we source all our seafood directly from fishing families, we are able to cut out many extra costs that exist in the industrial supply chain. This allows us to offer competitive prices for our members while paying fair wages to our fishers.

Our Community Partners pick-up locations are values-aligned stores who volunteer to distribute members’ orders. In Metro Vancouver, we have more than 35 locations across the Lower Mainland with pick-ups every week. We also have more than 60 Community Partners in towns and cities across the rest of Canada. 

When it is time to pick up your order, you have the flexibility to come into the store anytime over the course of several days during the store’s regular hours. You can find the location nearest to you and view the pick-up frequency schedule on our locations page. 

Our Community Supported Fishery creates a unique relationship between home cooks and fishing families. We are not a traditional retailer so we don’t catch and store a lot of extra inventory. Instead, we use your share credit to make plans for the fishing season. By pre-paying for your share, we can offer fishing families the hugely beneficial difference of creating certainty and plans they can actually count on. 

We know it is hard to plan as a first-time member, so we do offer options to top up your credit balance during the season.

Your pre-paid share goes directly into your online account as a credit for you to spend on delicious seafood. Deciding what size share suits you will depend on how many people are in your household, how often you expect to eat seafood, and how late in the calendar year you are signing up.

We provide a share size calculator with suggested amounts based on our best value products. For example, we recommend the following starting share sizes if you eat seafood once a week:

• Single: $400
• Couple: $700
• Family of 4: $1300

Don’t stress about this in your first year with us. Start at whatever amount you are comfortable with while knowing you can top up your credit balance if needed.

Yes! We know it can be difficult to know how much seafood you’ll eat in a year, especially if this is your first season at Skipper Otto. 

This is why we make it easy for members to top up credit on their account. Having said that, we ask those who can right-size their shares to do so as soon as they join. We use membership funds to pay fishers on a timely basis and to plan how much seafood we will need. Our model just wouldn’t work if everyone simply paid as they go, but we like being able to offer flexibility to those who need it.

We ask you to spend down your share credits by the last pick-up in your area for the calendar year of your membership – usually November or December. 

We use your membership dollars to catch seafood in that year and don’t carry over a large inventory season to season. If you have credit remaining in your account at the end of the season, balances of up to $50 will roll over to your next year’s share when you renew your membership. If you don’t renew, we will donate any unspent amounts to charity.

We do! We are sure you will love Skipper Otto membership and we want everyone to try it. If you decide Skipper Otto is not a fit for you, let us know and we will refund you the unspent amount of your share within 60 days of becoming a member.

We offer a money back guarantee for your first 60 days of membership. Because of the short fishing season and our business model to best support fishing families, we don’t provide refunds beyond your first 60 days.  

You are always welcome to transfer your share to family or friends. We are also happy to donate your share to one of our community-based charitable organizations so that those in need can enjoy your unused share.

Each year, our members contribute to the costs of running the program by paying a small annual membership fee. The amount ranges from $19-$29 depending on the time of year you renew and is lowest during our Insider Early Bird period from October to November.

We’ve waived the membership fee for first-year members to encourage you to try us out!

Yes! If you’re a current member and you refer a new member to Skipper Otto, you each get a $20 credit added to your account. Give them your unique referral code found on “the Dock”, that they can use when signing up.