12 | Alaska Seafood Cooperative
entious in how they source seafood, ac-
tually looking to ensure suppliers have
earned this certification.
As a further testament to AKSC’s en-
vironmental stewardship, one need only
consider what it has achieved in terms
of supporting groundfish retention. What
was once calculated at 50 to 60 percent
has now climbed to almost 95 percent,
designating this enterprise among the best
performing in the industry. “Our ground-
fish retention achievements are largely at-
tributed to our developing of markets for
previously discarded fish ... also, by re-
ceiving cooperative allocations, each tar-
get fish became valuable,” explains An-
derson.
AKSC has also advanced in meth-
ods of minimizing impact to eco-sys-
tems through its trawling processes. That
achievement has been spurred in part by
the manner in whichAKSC has worked to
minimize impact to eco-system through
its trawling processes. Typically, a trawl
sweep deploys a combination of wire
and rope which help expand a net that
