SueAnna Harrison remembers sticking product labels on cans of albacore tuna for a penny per can in the early 1990s.
It was her very first job at the business her father, Newport fisherman Captain Herb Goblirsch, founded in the late 1970s.
Oregon’s Choice Gourmet has, until recently, run exclusively as an online shop for seafood, from Albacore tuna to chinook salmon and Dungeness crab.
Harrison bought the business from her parents three years ago, just 10 weeks before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Now she's finally launching the business' first-ever storefront, The Fish Shop, at 2511 NW Ninth St. in Corvallis.
Harrison is hoping it becomes a hub for good quality and local gourmet food in the coming years, she said.
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From mail order to storefront
When Goblirsch first founded the business, he ran a very small operation, catching fish and sending the haul off to a small cannery in Coos Bay for canning.
But what soon helped make the business stand out, according to Harrison, was the ways he handled the fish before it went to the cannery.
Things like "landing it on foam pads, so that it doesn’t get bruised (and) bleeding it right away, then flash-freezing on the boat, so it’s preserved right at the peak of quality and then it stays that way until it's brought to the cannery," she said.
Goblirsch also ensured the fish was cooked, once, in its own juices with no additives, Harrison said.
That process endures with the change of ownership, she added.
Although her father no longer fishes, Harrison said the business still buys from friends and other second-generation fishers who catch good quality seafood, and continues to have them canned by the few local micro-canneries that remain in the Newport area.
In line with the internet boom of the mid-1990s, the business evolved from processing mail orders to online orders. As the business grew — largely through word-of-mouth — Harrison worked with her father to process orders after school as an eighth grader, and often during college breaks, she said.
Because her mother worked a full-time job at Oregon State University, that responsibility fell primarily on her.
Meanwhile, fishing had her dad gone for months at a time, she said.
"After college I thought, well, it’s a great business. I know it; it’s like a part of the family. So, I officially bought it in 2020," Harrison said.
Award-winning products
This year, the business' chinook salmon product was one of 10 winners in the fish category at the 2023 Good Food Awards, a juried blind taste test of food products from all across the country in which products are eliminated until the very best emerge on top.
It is not just about the product. The award rewards particularly local and micro-food producers who incorporate equity and sustainability practices into their operations.
The competition is fierce and draws more than 2,000 entries each year, according to information on the Good Food Awards website.
"It’s quite an accomplishment to become a winner," Harrison said.
"I started submitting in 2020, and every year I’ve submitted, one of our products has won," she said. "We’re on our fourth Good Food Award now."
Other award-winning products in the company's line include the smoked albacore, jalapeño garlic albacore, and the lightly salted albacore.
Online, Harrison said she continues to process about 100 to 150 orders per week.
Among the customer base are patrons who have been buying the product since her father owned the business. And Oregon’s Choice Gourmet continues to distribute through stores, including the First Alternative Co-operative and Portland's New Seasons Market.
Boutique food shop
The coronavirus pandemic lockdown was as good a time as any to own an online canned food business. But Harrison said she was also craving more personal connection and community interaction with other local businesses in the area — hence the desire for a storefront.
The Ninth Street location, formerly occupied by The Foam Man and before that, a thrift store, was appealing because of truck access and the windows, she said.
The location is spacious, and she has filled it with lots of houseplants and Oregon’s Choice Gourmet products as well as products from other local gourmet businesses, including smoked nuts from Pacific City and birch syrup from an Alaska-based friend.
"I want to celebrate all the great things that Oregon and the Pacific Northwest have to offer in the food realm," she said.
At the moment, Harrison runs the business alone with help from friends and son, Calex, who now repeats the same tasks she did many decades back for her father, labeling cans of products — thankfully not with glue sticks but a labeling machine.
Since the space launched, Harrison said he's taken more interest in the business and might someday take over from her.
Kosisochukwu Ugwuede (she/her) covers the cities of Corvallis, Philomath & Millersburg. She can be reached via e-mail at Kosiso.Ugwuede@lee.net or by phone via 541-812-6091