Third of three parts

By Susan Chambers, Staff Writer

COOS BAY - When it comes to one species of fish, the retail price is all over the place at local seafood stores and supermarkets.

On a recent day, McKay's Market had fresh Dover sole for sale at $4.98 a pound. Safeway was selling it for $7.99; Albertsons, $6.99 a pound. Chuck's Seafood in Charleston had it for sale for $4.99 a pound.

When it comes to fish - and particularly the high-volume West Coast groundfish, that has to compete with many other kinds of domestic and imported seafood - there really is no lowest common denominator for determining a retail price.

Working backward, from the display case to the distributor, back to the seafood processor and, finally, the boat, there is no magic equation that will predict what price a fisherman will get when he ties his boat up to unload his fish.

That's frustrating to members of the coastwide Fishermen's Marketing Association, trawlers who still are in port awaiting processors' signed approval of a market order.

“One theme resonates with the (FMA) board and membership: They want a process spelled out, in writing, for either side to change the price of fish,” Executive Director Pete Leipzig said Friday from the Eureka, Calif., office.

Leipzig and members such as Rex Leach, owner of the Charleston-based Ms. Julie, have maintained the tie-up isn't about price, per se. Trawlers simply want to fish and be guaranteed a price that won't drop dramatically.

On Friday, representatives of Pacific Coast Seafoods, in Warrenton, one plant under the Pacific Seafood Group umbrella, talked with northern Oregon fishermen, Leipzig said.

“The types of protections they want as a fish company are very similar to the protections fishermen want as far as prices not falling out from under them,” Leipzig said. “That's a positive step.”

Damage done?

Local trawl boats could untie this weekend and head to sea to bring in fresh groundfish, but if everybody leaves at once, it could land them in the same boat it did earlier this year.

Fishermen hit it big with petrale sole. The conditions were just right for high volumes to be caught quickly. The landings came in so fast that federal fishery managers asked the seafood industry to voluntarily slow down so the catch could last throughout the year.

Buyers talked with their captains and many did slow down and deliver fewer pounds of petrale, but much of the damage in the marketplace already was done. Processors had too much fish, necessitating a wholesale price drop in order to move a lot of it so they wouldn't have to absorb the higher cost of freezing and storing it. The price processors paid to fishermen also dropped, from an average of 92 cents a pound in January, to around 76 cents a pound in February.

In March, when trawlers refused to fish, the resulting loss of pre-sold fresh fish to supermarkets upset retailers, who had expected no interruption in supply.

“Our customers are mad,” Pacific Seafood Chief Operating Officer Tim Horgan said.

Now, groundfish likely will fight to get back into the display case that also carries a variety of farmed and imported products.

It's a fight West Coat groundfish is familiar with. Groundfish doesn't have the individual appeal of salmon or tuna. It doesn't carry the distinctive color of a Chinook or a tuna. And it doesn't have the distinction of Dungeness crab.

Dover sole, rockfish, petrale sole - except for the texture, the color of the fish melds into the background of the rest of the seafood marketed as “whitefish” that also includes farm-raised tilapia or catfish.

“There's still fish around,” Hallmark Fisheries Production Manager Scott Adams said, emphasizing that, for customers, there still are other choices. “Our phones aren't ringing off the hook.”

Adams said the soles and rockfish also are up against the Alaskan halibut and other species of soles and flounders that can be purchased from boats delivering to Alaska or West Coast ports for as little as 10 cents a pound.

What's the difference?

Ask any fisherman about the fish they catch and they'll tout the quality of the seafood they bring in - the industry has worked hard to land products that are as fresh when the customer buys them as the day they were delivered to the processor. Seafood and the coast are as intertwined as beef and Texas.

So why are the prices so high at some stores? fishermen ask.

The fleet reasons that if fishermen receive, for example, 40 cents a pound, the processor cuts it, stores it, ships it and makes a profit. It goes out the door at around $3 a pound or more to a distributor. Then the distributor sorts it, moves it and stores it again - and it must be in refrigerated or frozen storage - and makes a profit; a percentage is added. The same goes for the supermarket, but the exact figures and strategies distributors and supermarkets use for their markups are closely held secrets.

Furthermore, marketing at the retail level gets creative and competitive in order to attract the customer. It all adds up.

“Stores with the Premium Fresh and Healthy format coordinate layout, fixtures, product assortment, lighting and other elements to focus the shopping experience around the quality products in our perimeter fresh departments and the meal solutions that these areas offer our Alberstons customers,” Albertsons Intermountain West Division Communications Manager Donna Eggers said in an e-mail. “Additional sections arrange common ingredients together for a quick and easy meal, while others might place staples such as bread and milk in more accessible locations.”

Locally, the Albertsons store has a selection of wines available and marinades and rubs that make preparing seafood simple and easy. Other stores, including seafood stores, also make similar arrangements.

One of the biggest costs retailers account for is shrink - or spoilage - in their seafood products.

Seafood is a highly perishable product, Food Marketing Institute Director of Communications Bill Greer said.

“When retailers lay (fish) on ice, over time, the fish skin deteriorates,” Greer said. “The fish is no longer of a quality or of an appearance that makes it salable.

“I don't know the (specific) shrink rate, but it's high,” Greer said.

At the national level, retailers, too, are having a tough time competing. Discount stores, club stores - they're selling things at very low prices, very low cost, Greer said, and it's having several repercussions, including:

� in some instances, downward pressure on prices;

� an increase in fresh, not frozen, products;

� the addition of ethnic and organic foods;

� more prepared foods; and

� the cost of implementing new country-of-origin law that went into effect for seafood two years ago. The food industry is spending up to 10 times more on recordkeeping and training for the law than what the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated when the law first was proposed, the FMI said in a statement.

Local seafood stores, such as Chuck's and Seahawk Seafoods in Charleston, also have their own pricing strategies, but oftentimes can be more flexible.

“We have to out-compete them on quality and different (seafood),” Chuck's Manager Heath Hampel said.

Still, having high-quality fish available for too low of a price isn't good, either, the FMA's Leipzig said. It could give the wrong impression to the customer.

“The whole concept of having to compete with the lowest-priced product troubles me,” Leipzig said.

But regardless, getting a price agreement with processors for fish still is the bottom line.

“We'll wait and see if we get something from Pacific Coast,” Leipzig said late Friday. “Then we'll get a conference all to respond immediately.”