VC Gets Hooked as Seafood Service Casts a Wider Net

Aiming to offer healthy, convenient and delicious local seafood to families in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties while supporting independent small-boat fishers, Kim Selkoe and Victoria Voss launched Get Hooked Seafood in November 2018.

Selkoe and a few others had started an early version of a community-supported fishery (CSF) program a few years after she earned her PhD in ecology, evolution and marine biology from UC Santa Barbara. It petered out within a couple years mostly due to administrative difficulties.

Just four years later, while working at the fish market in Santa Barbara, she realized there was again, perhaps, a community need.

“I got a lot of winces from people when I told them that the best way to get local seafood is to get up early on Saturday mornings to go to the Saturday Market in the Harbor. I realized that we need to provide more options and better timing,” she explained. “I wanted to do it again but with the right partner, and that’s when Victoria came along.”

Selkoe knew Voss’s father, commercial fisherman Chris Voss, through Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara, where she is the executive director and he a board member. The entrepreneurs met when Victoria Voss came back from Australia—where she had moved temporarily for her husband’s work. She was looking for something to do and her father encouraged her to meet with Selkoe to explore the CSF idea.

“Get Hooked is my way of connecting more deeply with my dad and the fishing legacy that runs deep in our family,” she says. “I am so excited to share this tradition with my hometown community.”

Get Hooked is subscription-based program that delivers high-quality, sustainable seafood directly from local fishers who understand sustainability. The co-founders say that because they understand the importance of the independent fish business, they offer their fishers the best price they can for a variety of fresh seafood.

“The best part of fishing in the Santa Barbara Channel is the large variety of species that are available,” says Voss. “We have both cold-water and warm-water species that we can cycle through.”

Deliveries from Get Hooked can be customized, with some limitations. Keeping a variety of options available for selection, the CSF follows the seasons, so the week’s offerings are announced the day before delivery. They also offer pantry items from local artisans and include recipes like Pan-Seared Rockfish with Fresh Herbs or Coconut Basil Marinated Halibut with the seafood deliveries.

“Our goal is to make seafood accessible and build people’s confidence and expertise in cooking local seafood,” says Selkoe.

Pickups are available at Topa Topa Brewery in Ojai and Ventura; Rincon Brewery in Ventura; and Main Street Meats in Ventura. Home deliveries are also available.

For more information, visit GetHookedSeafood.com.