Processors of Bristol Bay's famed wild Alaska sockeye salmon told the bay's driftnet fleet that quality must continue to improve to compete in the global marketplace with other wild and farmed salmon.

"You need to understand this is not an option for you, not a choice," Scott Blake, president of Copper River Seafoods, told fishermen packed into a meeting of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association during the 2009 Pacific Marine Expo.

"If you are to survive in this industry, you have to realize what you are competing against," Blake added. "Ultimately, it is the consumer who will tell you if you are successful. You have to give people a reason to put wild salmon on their plates, and you have to be cost-competitive."

Blake and spokesmen for three other processors of Bristol Bay sockeye were united in their emphasis on the need for continued quality improvements in the way the bay's red salmon are handled, as well as the need to deliver fish that will compete more readily on a global scale and garner harvesters a better image and a better price.

"Quality in Bristol Bay has improved dramatically over the last 10 years," said John Lowrance, founder of Leader Creek Fisheries in Seattle. "Across the board, things are progressing forward. It's not as fast as some people like, but it is forward. And a lot of it has happened on the back of your boats. If we keep moving this way, we will end up getting somewhere great."

The industry also has to add value, said Greg Blakey, president and owner of Snopac Products Inc., in Seattle.

"It's going to take time, but it will be worth it in the long run," Blakey said, adding that quality has improved over the past decade, but the industry still has a long way to go.

In the effort to promote Bristol Bay's red salmon as a brand, quality and consistency are key, said Mark Palmer, president and chief operating officer of Ocean Beauty Seafoods.

He added that the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association is on the right track to help with improvements.

The association, which represents 1,850 driftnet vessels, advocates for continued improvements in the handling of sockeye, from the moment the fish are brought on board and picked from the nets. In its most recent newsletter, the association noted that in 2008, some 24 percent, or 32.5 million pounds of sockeyes delivered by the driftnet fleet, were chilled, but the remaining 102.2 million pounds were not.

Those delivering quality, chilled fish got bonuses of 10 percent to 13 percent. Had the rest of the harvest been chilled, it would have brought fishermen an additional $11 million to $12 million, the association said.

The Bristol Bay fishery in 2009 had an estimated value of nearly $130 million.

With another significant sockeye harvest forecast for the 2010 season, harvesters and processors are looking for ways to improve quality and to better compete in the global market.

The overall world supply of sockeye is generally a split of 70 percent farmed and 30 percent wild salmon. Most of the world's wild sockeye is caught in Bristol Bay, but the bay contributes only 3 percent of the world's supply.

The association first received funding from a 1 percent tax on fish in January 2008. It has invested in refrigerated seawater, ice machine operations and other efforts to enable to fleet to deliver a higher quality product to processors. The group also has invested in research, including a project by Mark Buckley, president of Digital Observer Inc. of Seattle, looking at ways to better handle the fish caught with driftnets.

In a presentation during the expo event, Buckley pointed out several methods that could be employed to deliver more top-grade, unblemished salmon. Chilling, bleeding and use of rubber mats for the fish to fall on, rather than the hard deck, were among his suggestions.

Bill Webber, a commercial fisherman from Cordova and owner of Gulkana Seafoods Direct, was among the association members at the event.