Anchorage Daily News

Brett Gibson’s salmon is going to the dogs — in neat little bite-sized treats. The Arctic Paws owner, and pups across the country, couldn’t be happier.

This year, Gibson hopes to purchase up to 1.5 million pounds of wild Alaska salmon for production of his high-protein Yummy Chummies canine treats, now selling at supermarkets and pet stores in a growing number of stores throughout North America.

The bright red packages of Yummy Chummies, in original salmon plus bacon and chicken flavors, are being snapped up by shoppers in Krogers, Albertsons, King Soopers, Petco, Winn Dixie, Costco and other stores. And the list keeps on growing.

While pet lovers can purchase the product online at www.yummychummies.com, Gibson said his goal is to make it possible for consumers to purchase them without having to order them from Alaska.

“As we roll out expanded distribution, we will tell folks buying on the Internet where to buy locally,” he said. The product, for which roe-stripped salmon is the main ingredient, is appealing because it is nutritional and palatable, he said.

Dog treats from salmon waste

Gibson, an attorney turned pet food producer, made his first small batch of Yummy Chummies in his garage in 1997, with a pet dog as the official taster.

“When I decided to do this, I had to get a supply of fish. I found a place I could get some salmon, and the first year packed out 800 pounds of salmon from Prince William Sound,” he said.

The salmon that goes into this product is good enough to serve for dinner if one was so inclined, although it is not the salmon that Alaska or industry officials want on dinner tables in the United States or Canada. It doesn’t present visually as a premium product, he said.

“They are good fish, but not ocean brights,” he said. “They have food quality, but as far as presentation of a premium product, Alaska does not want the fish I take off the market on dinner tables.”

Gibson was sport fishing on the Russian River on the Kenai Peninsula in the late 1990s, feeding scraps from his sockeye catch to his dog Keela when the idea for creating a pet food product from salmon scraps was spawned.

At the time, the commercial salmon industry was depressed, and there was a story on television about fish that couldn’t be caught for the roe because there was no value in the fish itself. To avoid violating wanton waste laws, harvesters who were roe-stripping the valuable eggs had to find a market for the fish itself.

“I thought, ‘I wonder if we could make some sort of product out of fish for a dog,’ ” Gibson said. “That was the moment that it all kind of launched. I started my research and development so I could proceed with making a product.”

That led to a trip to a dog food plant in Ohio, a rendering facility, and trips to feed and trade shows for a better look into research and development of fish byproducts. Gibson studied food sciences information too, then proceeded to his garage to produce the first of what would become known commercially as Yummy Chummies.

Challenges of growth

Having perfected the product itself, along with eye-catching packaging, Gibson continues to wrestle with the challenges of expanding the retail markets for Yummy Chummies and keeping supply, warehousing and shipping costs under control.

Gibson used his first dollar-for-dollar matched grant from the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board to position Arctic Paws to get into large markets. By the second year of effort, his product was on the shelves of several major retailers.

“Now I’m sitting here wondering where to get $500,000 to $1 million to capitalize on those efforts,” Gibson said. “The logistics costs and issues we face being a manufacturer in Alaska are almost insurmountable. We are always looking for new efficiencies to offset those costs inherent in being an Alaska manufacturer, so we don’t have to move to Washington state.”

Gibson calculates that the cost of production in Alaska, where he lives with his wife and three children, is 25 to 30 percent higher than in Washington state. Warehouse space, for example, runs 35 to 60 cents a square foot in Washington, compared to 95 cents to $1.25 a square foot in the Anchorage area, he said.

This is an area where state officials can play a role, helping Alaska-based manufacturers deal with these problems and leveling the field, he said.

“For years I have heard we need more manufacturing, more value added,” he said. “But you show me any ongoing long-term program to offset that higher cost of production.”

The bulk of existing programs that could aid Alaska-based manufacturers are geared to rural development. While Gibson supports such efforts, he can’t participate in them, which is why he finds the grant program available through the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board so helpful.

“You are seeing a transformation of the (fisheries) industry as a whole: Higher value, better product,” he said. “It applies to me because when that happens, you have a lot of waste and byproduct that can be used by us.”

Gibson points to a range of firms producing a growing number of value-added seafood products, including Trident Seafoods, Ocean Beauty Seafoods and Copper River Seafoods, as well as such companies as Taco Loco.

Copper River Seafoods now has plans to process year-round, and marketing dollars flowed out of the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board and into the Alaska-based manufacturers, he said.

“Those funds, and we have Sen. Ted Stevens to thank for it, saved our industry,” he said. “Stevens was the catalyst; those funds were the starting point of the recovery of our industry. Without those funds it would have taken a lot longer to get where we are at.

“What I’m doing with the dogs treats is somewhat revolutionary and new; a new facet of the seafood industry for Alaska.”

The state, with its current budget surplus, can help right now by using the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board model, he said.

“Why doesn’t the state have an ongoing program to help further expand our seafood industry, to further accentuate the positive move it has made in the last four to five years?” he asked.

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