Overview of King Fish Trading Co.

King Fish Trading Co. was established in 1976 by Jim and Beverly Saunders in The Dalles, Oregon. Initially King Fish Trading Co. was established to buy salmon, steelhead and sturgeon from the spring and fall Native fisheries on the upper Columbia River. It had been sometime since a major buyer had established buying stations for this fishery. The salmon stocks had been low for many years. The Native fishermen were eager to have a buyer in their area.

In the first years of business, King Fish purchased enough product to sell to the Portland, Oregon area restaurants. As business progressed and the salmon stocks increased, King Fish expanded. In 1982 the King Fish purchased some property in The Dalles, Oregon and built a buying/processing plant. During the fishing seasons King Fish employed as many as 15 employees and had 4 or 5 buying stations along the Columbia River. King Fish also began buying fish on the lower Columbia from the non-Native fishermen. The market had now expanded to selling to the larger distributors and smokers. Many of these relationships endure to the present time.

Originally, King Fish Trading Co. was busy with fishing seasons that spanned ten months of the year. However, due to environmental restrictions by both the State and Federal governments and the Tribal governments, the active fishing months on the Columbia River dwindled. King Fish began to look for new markets.

Working with the Tribal fisheries and the Oregon and Washington Fish and Wildlife Departments, King Fish was a major planner of a shad fishery at the Bonneville Dam in The Dalles, Oregon and the eel fishery at Willamette Falls in Oregon. The company also branched out into wholesale bait, oysters, and clams.

In the mid nineties, King Fish began to establish both import and export markets with Canadian firms. King Fish has since created new markets for Canadian seafood products in the US, Europe and the Eastern markets. About one-half of total product sales are now Canadian product or imported by Canadian companies.

At the present time King Fish is working on markets for salmon, prawns, sardines, herring, shellfish, squid and octopus and other underutilized species.