From the Chamber of Commerce: In 1957, fisherman Tom Savidge and his wife Marie built a backyard smokehouse and began selling smoked wild salmon to local taverns here in Anacortes. With that Specialty Seafoods was born (later renamed SeaBear after a Native American legend).
The tavern owners and their patrons loved Tom’s smoked salmon, but asked him to find a way to preserve it longer. Tom took their challenge and created a whole new idea in packaging... the Gold Seal pouch, for which he received a patent.
The Gold Seal pouch preserves the salmon naturally, and no refrigeration is required until the pouch is opened. This made it easy for tourists travel- ing through Anacortes on the way to Washington’s San Juan Islands to take Tom’s salmon back home with them, or to ship it to family and friends in different parts of the country. From this, word spread about our smoked wild salmon.
SeaBear has offered the best of wild Alaskan salmon with a history of award-winning quality, highlighted by numerous industry recognitions as well as coverage in leading media such as Prevention, Bon Appetit, Saveur, Fitness, QVC and Parade’s What America Eats.
While we sell a range of Pacific Northwest seafood, our focus is wild salmon for enter- taining, healthy eating and gifts. We feature traditional Northwest smoked salmon fillets; wild salmon dinner fil- lets: appetizers such as BeerGarden Smoked Salmon; smoked salmon chowder, and much, much more.
SeaBear starts with only premier pure, natural wild salmon (less than 1% of all Alaskan salmon meets our specifications), hand-fillets each one, and prepares and packages for simple, delicious use.
Included in the SeaBear Company family are Made In Washington Stores and Gerard and Dominique Seafoods. SeaBear is proud to have as its sister company, Made In Washington stores, a chain of retail special- ty stores dedicated to offering artisan gifts with a truly local flavor. Gerard & Dominique Smoked Salmon has been the salmon of choice for many prestigious hotels, elegant restaurants and specialty markets around the world.