Embracing the Wildness of Life, Family & Fish
Catch Sitka Seafoods is a family-run company born of the Alaskan living and fishing dreams of our founders, Issam and Mindy Samman. Issam has lived in Sitka since 1999. He and Mindy met in Sitka in 2006 when Mindy came to work in a Russian American & Alaska Native art shop for the summer. She got more than she bargained for out of her adventure. They married in 2007 and lived in Sitka during the fishing season and in Montana during the school year, where Mindy taught high school art. In 2016, a two-fold opportunity to move back, full-time, to where they met and fell in love arrived in the form of an art teaching position for Mindy and a Sitka sport fishing company in need of a new owner and captain, Issam. Being 9 months pregnant with their second daughter and eager to raise their growing family amid the beauty, people, wildlife and adventure that are Sitka, they packed their bags.
Building the Future, Fishing the Dream
When the sport fishing company deal fell through (along with the house they planned to buy), the Samman family did what they do best, they pivoted. While Mindy taught art and focused on their two young girls, Issam built his own fishing boat. By 2017, Catch Sitka Sport Fishing was up and running with Issam leading deep water fishing tours for a global clientele. Like all passion-driven beginnings, it was an exhausting start rewarded in quick growth.
Sharing the Magnificent Haul
By 2018, the Sammans, at the urging of their sport fishing clientele, decided to expand their business and create their own seafood company supplying pristine, nutritious, wild-caught fish to wholesalers and restaurants. With Issam's 20 year tenure in the Sitka Seafood Industry he had already developed trusted relationships with the best fishermen and women of Sitka's small-boat artisanal hook and line fleet. All it would take was a processing facility and a boatload of certifications, specialized permits and other important hoops to jump through to safely and sustainably operate a seafood company. What’s a processing facility and regulatory hoops if you’ve already built a boat and a business? Issam and Mindy started construction and, within months, Catch Sitka Seafoods was born. Issam fished days with sport fishing clients. At night, he processed the magnificent client fish catches in addition to processing fish obtained from trusted local commercial Sitka fisher families for wholesale to high-end restaurants.
Expanding Directly to Consumers, Committing to Sitka’s Fisher Families
While the business grew as quickly as the thriving Samman girls, 2020 changed everything for Catch Sitka Seafoods and the world. With travel and restaurants shut down by the pandemic, the sport fishing and wholesale seafood business ground to a halt. Faced with another pivot, the Sammans looked both near and far. They opened Catch Sitka Seafoods to consumers nationwide, creating boxes of the world’s most incredible fish, all wild caught by the local Sitka community of fisher families. Shipped from dock to door in four simple steps, Catch Sitka’s Seafoods is proud to provide customers far and wide locally caught Wild Alaskan Seafood from Sitka’s waters. Here’s hoping you can taste and feel our commitment to family, community, sustainability and good health in every bite. It’s sent to you from Sitka with love.