April 25, 2023 — Bristol Bay saw a record-breaking harvest of more than 60 million sockeye last summer. The fishery provided roughly two-thirds of the global sockeye supply. It also made up most of the state’s largest harvest on record, which was up 40% from the year before.
“That’s a lot more fish to sell through the system,” said Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association’s executive director, Andy Wink, at a virtual presentation on market conditions earlier this month.
The huge volume of sockeye from 2022 means companies are still selling off those fish, which has tamped down this year’s market, and some processors are still waiting for money from last year’s harvest.
“That big harvest from 2022 needs to sell to create working capital for 2023,” Wink said. “What’s left of it is just a cost, right? It costs money to continue to finance it, costs money to store it and ship it and all the things.”