Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation

The growth of the local food movement in the United States has generated an increase in demand for local seafood. The sale of catch directly from fishermen to the consumer is one mechanism by which the demand for local seafood is addressed. This practice, known as direct marketing, differs from the industrial supply chain that dominates seafood distribution in the United States today which contains multiple firms in between the fishermen and the end consumer. Direct marketing methods provide consumers with access to locally caught seafood and shorten the seafood supply chain, therefore making it easier for the consumer to know how, where, and by whom their seafood was caught. Fishermen employ various methods of direct marketing including community supported fisheries (CSFs), fishermen’s markets, off-the-boat sales, and arrangements with local restaurants. The aim of this research is to fill gaps in existing research on direct marketing by examining situations where fishermen sell their catch at farmers’ and fishermen’s markets along the coast of Southern California. To set the stage for this research, I conducted a literature review of the benefits of direct marketing to various stakeholder groups, along with the purposes and goals of these operations. The following questions are addressed in this study: (1) What types of direct marketing are described in the primary literature and what are the published benefits of these operations? (2) What is the diversity and structure of fishermen’s markets and how do fishermen participate in farmers’ markets in Southern California? (3) What benefits do these direct marketing strategies offer various stakeholder groups?