“You Can’t Catch ‘Em and Sell ‘Em”: Perceptions of Obstacles to Direct Marketing among Georgia Fishers

Direct marketing of seafood is a promising avenue for seafood sales in the United States, utilizing local foods venues such as farmers markets and Community Supported Fisheries (CSFs). While interest in locally sourced seafood among local foods communities in Atlanta and Athens, Georgia is high, fishers from coastal Georgia have not filled this profitable niche. We investigate why this opportunity is not exploited by conducting qualitative interviews with twenty-one fishers. Fishers described numerous obstacles to direct marketing, focused on the simultaneous labor investment in on-shore and “on the water” efforts. In addition, fishers’ concerns reveal the financial and social risks that fishers would undertake by attempting to sell seafood outside of their existing economic arrangements with docks. This relationship echoes the understudied patron-client relationships described in fisheries in Southeast Asia. We conclude with a recommendation for modifying direct marketing expectations to accommodate successful integration of seafood.