Meet Your Farmer: Fishpeople

Photo credit: Fishpeople

After a successful career in the textile and apparel industry, Duncan Berry moved to the central coast of Oregon with the idea of starting an environmental consulting business. He was passionate about protecting and restoring Oregon’s natural resources. He had grown up salmon fishing on his family’s fishing boat, so an interest in marine life came naturally to him. He became increasingly involved in marine reserve projects as well as environmental policy. It was at a sustainability-focused roundtable with Oregon’s governor that he met Kipp Baratoff, who had a background in finance and operations. Together, they recognized that the way the fishing industry was operating at the time was inefficient and harmful to the environment. Ocean habitats were in danger, as were the coastal communities where economies depended on the industry. With the goal of revolutionizing the relationship between consumers and the sea, they co-founded Fishpeople in 2012.

Transparency, sustainability and community are at the foundation of Fishpeople. Berry and Baratoff wanted to educate consumers about where their seafood was coming from and how exactly it got to their kitchen. From the beginning, they wanted to be a consumer-need-driven company. In the planning stages, they talked to fishermen, processors, distributors, grocers and consumers in an effort to thoroughly examine each step of the supply chain. They wanted to understand the existing problems so that they could come up with a solution that would resolve them. Through this investigation, they found that there was a growing demand for safe, high quality, responsibly sourced seafood that is also healthy and easy to prepare. Shoppers wanted delicious, nutritious seafood without the hassle of having to cook fish. Fishpeople saw its opportunity to create gourmet, on-the-go meal options that were ethical and traceable.

Today, Fishpeople is based out of Portland with its processing facility located in the coastal town of Toledo. They have fostered relationships with each of their suppliers so that they are able to offer pure, simple ingredients that are free of artificial colors, flavors, antibiotics and preservatives. Even as they’ve expanded to include easy meal kits, delicious seafood soups and healthy salmon jerky snacks, their goal has stayed consistent. They have remained passionate and steadfast about sustaining the oceans’ ecosystems while sustaining the economic health of coastal fishing communities. Each product has a batch number on its (recyclable) packaging that customers can use to find out the source and producer of each ingredient in their specific meal. From fish and vegetables to herbs and spices, transparency is at the core of how Fishpeople operates.

How To Add Fishpeople to Your Delivery:
Full Circle members – head on over to our online Farm Stand Market to customize your upcoming delivery. Market is open from noon on Thursday until 6 pm on your cutoff date. After you confirm your produce items, click the orange button “Confirm and Continue To Other Farm Products” to add farm products to your delivery.

Not part of our farm family? Find out if we deliver to your neighborhood.