What a year 2020 was! I’m so proud and humbled by all our members, including those who joined for the first time ever, and those who have been with us for years. Our members came together to support fishing families and to create a better sustainable seafood system – one that works for people, communities, and ecosystems.

We’ve been engaged in this important work for over 12 years now, but in 2020, our members came through in a huge way proving that our truly unique boat-to-fork model works.

Here are just a few highlights.

Because of the growth in our membership this year, we were able to support 22 fishing families and we were also able to purchase a bigger share of their catches. Not only were each of these fishing families paid fairly, but they were given the peace of mind knowing they’d have a stable market. In a year where COVID-19 made the rest of the industry highly volatile and unpredictable, your early commitment to our fishing families made their season.

Growth in members also meant adding more pick-up locations! This year, we welcomed members in Ottawa, Hamilton, Nanaimo, Pemberton, Comox Valley, and Cariboo Chilcotin region to the Skipper Otto community. Members from Victoria to Ottawa, from small rural communities to bustling cities, are all enjoying the same wild, BC seafood caught by our small-scale fishermen, and we think that’s pretty cool.

This year, we started offering Pacific hake to our members for the first time ever. Hake is a bountiful fishery here on the BC coast, but unfortunately, almost 100% of the catch is exported to eastern Europe. We catch more hake in BC than we do all 5 species of Pacific salmon, yet it remains largely unknown, and therefore unappreciated by Canadians. We were determined to find someone who could help us introduce this fish locally, and give our members another way to eat with the ecosystem. We were so lucky to have met Cary Williams, one of the only independent hake fishermen in BC. Our members proved that there is indeed a Canadian market for this abundant and affordable fish, and we can’t wait to get even more of his catch next year!

2020 is not quite over, and there is still more to be done, but we wanted to emphasize how impactful your membership has been this year. The importance of local food systems and strong Canadian supply chains was brought into sharp focus this year, and it was more apparent than ever before that our CSF is an important part of that.

To all of you who joined in 2020, from the entire Skipper Otto team, thank you so much for being a Skipper Otto member in 2020! We’re looking forward to making an even bigger impact together this year!