One company, Trident Seafoods, keeps working not only to bring customers the freshest and healthiest ;sh possible, but to help maintain the resource’s long-term survival by staying well within catch limits.
Netting success
Trident Seafoods started with one boat, says founder and chairman Chuck Bundrant.
Preceding the boat was a dream, one that Bundrant turned into a successful privately held and 100 percent American-owned seafood harvesting and processing company. While Trident processes fish from around the world, the company focuses on wild products from Alaska, including salmon, pollock, crab, halibut and cod.
N
E
G
N
O
R
E
M
A
N
A
V
N
H
O
J
Bundrant is modest about his success. “I’ve been blessed to be at the right spot at the right time with the right people,” he tells ;e Connection.
In the fall of 1960, Bundrant was taking classes
on a pre-veterinary track and working 40 hours a
week. It was di;cult to stay on top of both. ;e teen
found inspiration in the ;lm North to Alaska, and
he and three friends set out from Tennessee on
their own trek in January 1961. Bundrant laughs
that “about the time we got to Seattle, my friends
were ready to go back home.”
Bundrant stuck it out, making $1.47 an hour
working on a processing ship in Alaska’s Aleutian
Islands. He says the ;rst few years were really tough,
but he worked his way up from deckhand to captain
and scraped together the funds to buy his own crab
boat in 1965.
He built a second crab boat in 1967, but sold it two years later and headed back to Tennessee, where he considered becoming a farmer. But Alaska
Chuck and Joe Bundrant
BRIAN SMALE
had gotten ahold of him, and three months later he returned, taking a job with Vita Food, a crab-processing business.
While working on a ;oating processor for Vita Food, Bundrant began to toy with the idea of catching and processing crab on the one vessel. At that time the combination was unheard of: Catching boats needed maneuverability, while processers needed space to handle and freeze the crab.
Ignoring the refrain of “it can’t be done,” Bundrant, He called the resulting catcher-processer the Billikin, after a Native ;e advantages of being able to catch and process at sea meant the Billikin could go to the most abundant areas and then process and freeze the crabmeat without heading back to shore.
As for Trident’s success, Bundrant points to investing his pro;ts back into the business and the decision around 1977 to diversify. It was what he calls “a three-legged stool” approach—;shing for crab, salmon and bottom ;sh.
Trident has grown to boast a ;eet of more than 40 vessels, and through various mergers and acquisitions—and forging a relationship with Costco in 2000—its shore-based presence has expanded to include 16 plants located throughout Alaska and the Paci;c Northwest, plus one plant in Minnesota.
“;e goal has always been to grow at a rate we could manage,” says Bundrant. CONTINUED ON PAGE 29
(Left) Trident founder Chuck Bundrant, and his son, Joe, aboard the Kodiak Enterprise.
(Top) The Bundrants in the wheelhouse. Trident has been supplying wild-caught Alaskan fish to Costco since 2000. (Inset)
Trident’s success started with the Billikin, a catcher-processor.
Company: Trident Seafood
Chairman: Chuck Bundrant
Employees: 6,000 (at the height of the season)
Address: 5303 Shilshole Ave. N. W. Seattle, WA 98107
Web site: www.tridentseafoods.com
Items at Costco: 30 internationally—including fresh, frozen, deli, dry grocery & supplements
Comments about Costco: “The relationship with Costco has made us a better company. They continually pose challenges that help us improve our products to provide better value to the members.”—Joe Bundrant, Executive Vice President
References:
Archives