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Sustainable Seafood

Spotlight on Crown Prince Seafood

We’re shining a bright Member Deals Spotlight on Crown Prince Seafood this week! From July 27th – August 2nd, member-owners can enjoy a 20% discount on their full line of sustainable seafood products! Read on to learn more about this third-generation family-owned business that’s been committed to bringing high-quality seafood to your dinner table for over 75 years:

 

 

Family-owned and founded in 1948, Crown Prince, Inc. provides the finest quality canned seafood to cooks and customers throughout the United States and Mexico. Guided by three generations of the Hoffman family, Crown Prince has grown slowly and carefully, emphasizing quality products and sincere customer relationships above all else. 

History

Corneleus “Case” Anton Hoffman emigrated to the United States from Holland in 1918 as an 11-year-old. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to a handful of successful ventures, including opening an orange juice business with two friends called Cold Gold. It was at this orange juice factory, of all places, that Case was turned on to the prospect of specializing in seafood. The factory’s cost accountant was Norwegian and had a friend back home, Bjarne Ogne, who wanted to sell Norwegian sardines in the United States. Case and his fellow business owners agreed, and for a time they sold both orange juice and Norwegian sardines. Recognizing the impractical nature of this pairing, the men decided to sell Cold Gold and were left with an inventory of Norwegian sardines. Case offered to try and sell the fish, and the more he sold, the more interested he became in the products. He ordered more and in 1947 made his first big sale: to Alpha Beta, one of the leading regional grocery chains in California. With that sale, the company was born. Case named it “Norwegian Fish Importers,” and that name was used until Crown Prince was adopted in 1985.  

From 1947 to the late 1960s, Case worked tirelessly to make the business a success and was able to single-handedly expand sales throughout southern California. At first, he was the only employee, and orders were small enough that he made the deliveries in person from the back of a station wagon. When business started picking up he hired his first worker, a part-time girl to type invoices and help keep records. Soon he also hired warehouse trucks to make larger deliveries.

Case’s son, Bob Hoffman, entered the business in the late 1960s and took over many of the administrative and managerial responsibilities. This freed Case, a natural entrepreneur, to return to the field. Over the coming years, Case expanded into nearby states and eventually across the entire U.S. He traveled nationally, making sales calls and training sales managers to know the seafood and the company as well as he did. It was during this time that the name Crown Prince was adopted, as Norwegian Fish Importers no longer accurately reflected the company’s products. After decades of hard work, Case slowly began to transition into retirement and Bob took on more and more leadership until he was the company’s president.

Dustan Hoffman (Bob’s daughter and Case’s granddaughter) embraced her family legacy from an early age. At age 12, Bob recalls, Dustan would announce her future role as president of the company. Through college she spent summers and vacations learning everything she could about the seafood, where it is sourced, how it is packed, and the role of every single employee. Today, as predicted, she is the President of Crown Prince.

 

Sustainable Seafood

The team at Crown Prince understands the value of being a good steward of the natural resources and raw materials that make up their products. They are proud of their commitment to secure third-party certified sustainably harvested seafood from suppliers who follow socially and environmentally responsible practices. 

Here is a sample of the certification bodies associated with Crown Prince:

For a complete list of Crown Prince’s certified products, click here.

Crown Prince is also committed to working with suppliers who value and practice environmentally and socially responsible business. Crown Prince has created a Supplier Standards document that outlines the core commitments to social and environmental accountability that are expected from their suppliers. They also work directly with their suppliers to reduce waste, water use, GHG emissions, and energy usage while simultaneously increasing recycling efforts throughout the supply chain. They’re currently developing a Crown Prince Supplier Scorecard to assess how each of their suppliers is impacting the environment and their communities.

 

Sourcing from Well- Managed Fisheries

Crown Prince prides itself on sourcing its products from well-managed fisheries that use sustainable harvesting methods. From Alaska to Thailand, you can be sure that the fish products you eat from Crown Prince are well-managed and sustainable.

 

Corporate Environmental Sustainability

Under Dustan’s leadership, Crown Prince has grown to place special emphasis on healthy eating, natural foods, and environmental sustainability—while maintaining the core commitment to quality and customers, on which the company is based. In 2010, Crown Prince established a Green Team to identify and implement specific projects and goals to help the company manage and reduce its environmental impact. Crown Prince’s sustainability work plan includes tracking and managing corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, waste, and recycling.

After establishing the company’s baseline emissions in 2012, they set a publicly available target to reduce emissions from market-based electricity usage by 75% through 2020. They surpassed this goal in 2020 and adjusted the target to achieve a 100% reduction, which they achieved in 2022!

Crown Prince also measures Scope 3 emissions (such as business travel, employee commuting, shipping, and more), which go above and beyond the mandatory reporting standards. A greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory is a comprehensive accounting of all greenhouse gas emissions arising from the operational activities of an organization over a given period. It is one of the most valuable tools available to organizations looking to understand and reduce their carbon footprint. Crown Prince follows the internationally accepted Greenhouse Gas Protocol to calculate our GHG inventories.

Since 2010, Crown Prince has reported the results of their sustainability efforts to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). The CDP is an independent, not-for-profit, London- based organization working to drive GHG emissions reductions by businesses and cities. The CDP was established in 2000 and contains the largest database of corporate climate change information in the world.

Fish Tacos with Red Cabbage Slaw

Fire up the grill and take your tastebuds on a summer vacation with these tasty fish tacos! You’ll find many of the ingredients in our weekly sale display from July 13th – 19th, including local, organic All Souls Tortilleria corn tortillas. The Mahi Mahi featured in the sale comes to us from Orca Bay, which specializes in sustainably harvested seafood from responsible fisheries. This recipe will help you quickly pull it together and the slaw can be assembled a day or two in advance for quicker meal prep on a busy weeknight!

Spotlight on Starbird Fish

Being landlocked as we are, the very notion of “local” seafood seems implausible, but thanks to the team at Starbird Fish in Burlington, we are able to have the next best thing — sustainably sourced Alaskan seafood, harvested by Vermonters for Vermonters. Their small crew makes the annual voyage to Alaska to bestow Vermonters with the very best seafood available and provides us with a unique opportunity to know our fishermen. Starbird is featured in our Member Deals Spotlight from January 26th – February 1st, so it’s a great time to stock up the freezer! Read on to learn more about this unique local business and the crew that makes the magic happen:

 

With over a decade of experience as a commercial fisherman, Anthony “Captain Tony” Naples has been involved in all aspects of the trade, including building his own commercial fishing boats under the tutelage of legendary boat builder Lyford Stanley. Prior to launching his career as a fisherman, the Moretown, VT native explored prior stints as a farmer, a design/build craftsman and carpenter, a botanist, a lighthouse restoration expert, a photographer, a filmmaker, and a musician. In short, there’s not much that Anthony can’t do. But what really floats his boat is to spend his summers immersed in the pristine environs of Alaska’s Bristol Bay, then return home to share his modest catch with his friends, family, and community. 

After experiencing the rigors and extractive nature of the typical commercial fishing scene, he realized his preference for a different style and pace involving a more sustainable means of harvesting fish. In addition to captaining his own boat, he returns each year to the tight-knit Ugashik fishing community of Bristol Bay, where he teams up with longtime friends to practice a form of salmon fishing known as set netting. The Ugashik region is home to the largest sockeye salmon run in the world and is managed by the State of Alaska Fish and Game Department, whose team of state biologists ensures that a healthy number of fish return to the ecosystem every year.

It takes five separate flights to arrive at the comma-shaped estuary formed where the Ugashik River empties into Bristol Bay, on the western coast of the Alaska Peninsula. Upon arrival, the play-by-play goes something like this:  prep the gear; check the tides; check in with Alaska Fish and Game to learn of his “openers” which are the acceptable windows during which the salmon can be sustainably harvested; set the nets; catch the fish; harvest the fish from the nets; immediately deliver the catch to a “tender”, which is a nearby boat that cools the fish using a seawater refrigeration system and delivers them to the processor, who then flash freezes the fish and prepares it for shipment back to Vermont. These steps take place over a 24-hour period and are repeated for the duration of the salmon run. 

 

Upon arrival in Vermont, some of the fish is smoked and stored in a facility in Burlington, while the rest of the frozen fish is warehoused at the Mad River Food Hub in Waitsfield until it finds its way to the Burlington Farmers’ Market and to the shelves of various food co-ops, restaurants, and other small markets across Vermont. According to a feature in Edible Vermont, Anthony explains that “the future for small seafood producers is in the artisanal food market. I want to provide high-quality product to restaurants and farmers’ markets, places where people care about the source of their seafood.” He continues, “There’s a lot of junk that’s sold as seafood, as well as misinformation bordering on outright lies about origins and freshness.” When you choose to purchase fish from Starbird, you’re supporting every aspect from fisherman to fishery, and that level of transparency and authenticity is critical for Anthony. 

In an effort to create an authentic, transparent regional seafood supply chain, Anthony created the Northern Seafood Alliance – an organization with a mission to provide consumers access to wild fish and seafood caught by fishermen whom Anthony knows personally. He quips in the Edible Vermont piece that half of them are UVM grads.  He also notes that “Cranberry” Bob Lesnikoski of Fletcher, Vermont, who you more likely know as Vermont’s only commercial cranberry farmer, has been a great resource. “He’s a true jack-of-all-trades and savvy about the food scene. Bob’s a commercial fisherman himself, and he came out to Alaska to crew on one of my boats.” 

At the Co-op, you’ll find a supreme lineup of Starbird Fish, including Alaskan Coho salmon, King salmon, Sockeye Salmon, Rockfish, Halibut, and Cod. When you take it home to prepare it, we hope you’ll think of Captain Tony and the incredible journey that he takes each year to bring fish to your family’s table. 

Fish Tacos with Red Cabbage Mango Slaw

Fire up the grill and take your tastebuds on a summer vacation with these tasty fish tacos! You’ll find many of the ingredients in our weekly sale display from July 21st – 27th, including local, organic Vermont Tortilla Company corn tortillas. The Mahi Mahi featured in the sale comes to us from Orca Bay, which specializes in sustainably harvested seafood from responsible fisheries. This recipe will help you quickly pull it together and the slaw can be assembled a day or two in advance for quicker meal prep on a busy weeknight!

Fish Tacos with Red Cabbage Mango Slaw

It may not yet be summer, but you can take your tastebuds on a summer vacation with these tasty fish tacos!  You’ll find many of the ingredients in our weekly sale display from April 28th – May 4th, including local Sonia’s Salsa and local organic All Souls Tortilleria corn tortillas, and this recipe will help you quickly pull it together. You could even assemble the slaw a day or two in advance for quicker meal prep on a busy weeknight!

Spotlight on Starbird Fish

Being landlocked as we are, the very notion of “local” seafood seems implausible, but thanks to the team at Starbird Fish in Burlington, we are able to have the next best thing — sustainably sourced Alaskan seafood, harvested by Vermonters for Vermonters. Their small crew makes the annual voyage to Alaska to bestow Vermonters with the very best seafood available and provides us with a unique opportunity to know our fishermen. Starbird is featured in our Member Deals Spotlight from January 20th – 26th, so it’s a great time to stock up the freezer! Read on to learn more about this unique local business and the crew that makes the magic happen:

 

With over a decade of experience as a commercial fisherman, Anthony “Captain Tony” Naples has been involved in all aspects of the trade, including building his own commercial fishing boats under the tutelage of legendary boat builder Lyford Stanley. Prior to launching his career as a fisherman, the Moretown, VT native explored prior stints as a farmer, a design/build craftsman and carpenter, a botanist, a lighthouse restoration expert, a photographer, a filmmaker, and a musician. In short, there’s not much that Anthony can’t do. But what really floats his boat is to spend his summers immersed in the pristine environs of Alaska’s Bristol Bay, then return home to share his modest catch with his friends, family, and community. 

After experiencing the rigors and extractive nature of the typical commercial fishing scene, he realized his preference for a different style and pace involving a more sustainable means of harvesting fish. In addition to captaining his own boat, he returns each year to the tight-knit Ugashik fishing community of Bristol Bay, where he teams up with longtime friends to practice a form of salmon fishing known as set netting. The Ugashik region is home to the largest sockeye salmon run in the world and is managed by the State of Alaska Fish and Game Department, whose team of state biologists ensures that a healthy number of fish return to the ecosystem every year.

It takes five separate flights to arrive at the comma-shaped estuary formed where the Ugashik River empties into Bristol Bay, on the western coast of the Alaska Peninsula. Upon arrival, the play-by-play goes something like this:  prep the gear; check the tides; check-in with Alaska Fish and Game to learn of his “openers” which are the acceptable windows during which the salmon can be sustainably harvested; set the nets; catch the fish; harvest the fish from the nets; immediately deliver the catch to a “tender”, which is a nearby boat that cools the fish using a seawater refrigeration system and delivers them to the processor, who then flash freezes the fish and prepares it for shipment back to Vermont. These steps take place over a 24-hour period and are repeated for the duration of the salmon run. 

 

Upon arrival in Vermont, some of the fish is smoked and stored in a facility in Burlington, while the rest of the frozen fish is warehoused at the Mad River Food Hub in Waitsfield until it finds its way to the Burlington Farmers’ Market and to the shelves of various food co-ops, restaurants, and other small markets across Vermont. According to a feature in Edible Vermont, Anthony explains that “the future for small seafood producers is in the artisanal food market. I want to provide high-quality product to restaurants and farmers’ markets, places where people care about the source of their seafood.” He continues, “There’s a lot of junk that’s sold as seafood, as well as misinformation bordering on outright lies about origins and freshness.” When you choose to purchase fish from Starbird, you’re supporting every aspect from fisherman to fishery, and that level of transparency and authenticity is critical for Anthony. 

In an effort to create an authentic, transparent regional seafood supply chain, Anthony created the Northern Seafood Alliance – an organization with a mission to provide consumers access to wild fish and seafood caught by fishermen whom Anthony knows personally. He quips in the Edible Vermont piece that half of them are UVM grads.  He also notes that “Cranberry” Bob Lesnikoski of Fletcher, Vermont, who you more likely know as Vermont’s only commercial cranberry farmer, has been a great resource. “He’s a true jack-of-all-trades and savvy about the food scene. Bob’s a commercial fisherman himself, and he came out to Alaska to crew on one of my boats.” 

At the Co-op, you’ll find a supreme lineup of Starbird Fish, including Alaskan Coho salmon, King salmon, Sockeye Salmon, Rockfish, Halibut, and Cod. When you take it home to prepare it, we hope you’ll think of Captain Tony and the incredible journey that he takes each year to bring fish to your family’s table. 

Maldivian Red Curry Tuna

In honor of our duel celebrations of Fair Trade Month and Non-GMO Month, we’re excited to be featuring a lineup of some of our favorite Fairtrade Certified, non-GMO Verified ingredients in our weekly sale from October 14th – 20th. In that display, you’ll find most of the ingredients for this fantastic one-pot curry dish that comes to us from fairtradecertified.org. The curry is especially delicious served over a steaming bed of Lotus Foods organic heirloom Tri-Color Blend rice, also featured in the sale. The wild-caught Orca Bay tuna featured this week also bears certification from the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), which aims to promote and support diversity in the global supply chain. Orca Bay is an Alaska Native Owned business and proceeds from your purchase of their products support Alaska Native communities. Supplier diversity programs such as this seek to upend the reality for historically under-utilized, diverse-owned suppliers and help transform our supply chain to better reflect the rich diversity of the communities they serve.

Fish Tacos with Red Cabbage Mango Slaw

Fire up the grill and take your tastebuds on a summer vacation with these tasty fish tacos! You’ll find many of the ingredients in our weekly sale display from July 22nd – 28th, including several local favorites —  fresh tomatillo salsa from Sonia’s Salsa, organic Elmer Farm red cabbage, and organic Vermont Tortilla Company corn tortillas. The Mahi Mahi featured in the sale comes to us from Orca Bay, which specializes in sustainably harvested seafood from responsible fisheries. This recipe will help you quickly pull it together and the slaw can be assembled a day or two in advance for quicker meal prep on a busy weeknight!

Fish Tacos with Red Cabbage Mango Slaw

Take your tastebuds on a summer vacation with these tasty fish tacos! You’ll find many of the ingredients in our weekly sale display from April 29th – May 5th, including local Sonia’s Salsa and local organic All Souls Tortilleria corn tortillas, and this recipe will help you quickly pull it together. You could even assemble the slaw a day or two in advance for quicker meal prep on a busy weeknight!

Spotlight on Honeywilya Fish

Our Member Deals Spotlight shines brightly this week on Honeywilya Fish! All of their succulent sustainable seafood is 20% off for member-owners from January 14th – 20th! Read on to learn more about this unique local business that brings high quality, hook-and-line-caught wild Alaskan seafood to our Co-op shelves and the angler that makes it all possible:

For angler Lynn Steyaart, this fish tale begins on the shores of Georgia where he grew up fly fishing with his dad and watching the shrimp boats come into port. His path eventually led him to school at UVM, then on to adventures in commercial fishing in Alaska. It was here that Lynn met his wife, Maria, who had grown up in Chester, Vermont, but was spending some time as a wilderness ranger in Alaska. It was also there that Lynn purchased a commercial salmon troller called the “Honeywilya”, marking the exciting beginning of a new livelihood.

 

 

 

Lynn and Maria are now settled in Duxbury, Vermont, though Lynn still spends 6 months of the year fishing the 500-mile stretch of ocean in Southeastern Alaska from Ketchikan to Yakatak. Ideally, he returns home to Vermont with 700-800 pounds of seafood, which he sells to friends, neighbors, and a select few lucky local stores, including our Co-op.

 

 

All of Honeywilya Fish’s seafood is wild, sustainably caught by hook-and-line, individually landed, immediately cleaned, and gently handled by the Honeywilya crew. Without the use of nets, this small quantity catch method ensures an attention to detail and superior quality with each fish. Steyaart and his crew sustainably harvest King, Coho, and Ivory King Salmon, as well as Halibut and Lingcod. Immediately cleaned then flash-frozen, this fish will taste as good as the day it came out of the ocean. They bring their bounty back to Vermont every year to share the finest seafood the Pacific has to offer! 

 

Steyaart says it’s tough to leave his wife behind for half of each year and the days working on the boat can be long and strenuous, but it’s surprisingly easy to stay in touch. Because cruise ships frequent the southern Alaska coastline, cellphone coverage is surprisingly good where Lynn fishes and Maria hears from him often. And occasionally, as her schedule permits, she has even joined him on the boat.