Bob Fram

President, Garden & Valley Isle Seafood

Bob Fram began distributing seafood out of the trunk of his car in the early ’80 to any restaurant in Hawaii that would open its kitchen door from him. It helped that he had farm-raised Kauai blue prawns in his trunk. The oversized bright-blue shellfish opened a lot of doors early on, says Fram. As business picked up, he eventually persuaded his childhood friend, Dave Marabella, to join him in Honolulu, and the duo founded Garden & Valley Isle Seafood in 1984 as a seafood distributor. Fram is president/ secretary and Marabella is vice president/ treasurer.

The company has since grown to shipping fresh seafood to restaurants and wholesaler worldwide and boasts sales in excess of $15 million. Seafood is processed and shipped a 10,000-square-foot plant in Honolulu and a 7,000-square-foot facility on Maui, both of which have state-of-the-art food-production equipment. The distributor employs 45 and offers product from Hawaii, Japan, Tahiti, Fiji, Costa Rica, Chile, the Pacific Rim and Canada.

With high-profile restaurant customers such as Roy Yamaguchi’s and Bob Chinn’s, Fram and Marabella had to plan for future growth while maintaining the quality the company built its reputation on. I recently spoke with Fram about the future of his company after he’d spent a long morning overseeing global shipments of fresh fish.

Robinson: What has the company’s annual growth been like for the past few years?

Fram: It was faster before 9/11. Some years it was 20 percent; after 9/11 it was 3 to 5 percent annual growth. We learned that we had to attack the marketplace from different angle and make some internal changes.

There is a growing cruise-ship business in Hawaii, and we’re servicing that. We’ve had a good year. The average American tourist considers Hawaii a long but safe vacation now.

What is the biggest challenge your company faces?

We face a two-pronged [conservation] issue. First, the misguided conservation groups don’t realize that simple hook-and-line fishing is extremely sustainable and controlled, and fleets are monitored around the world. [Hawaii has] 100 or so boats that are longliners, and not all are working in a given week.

The turtle groups are relentless. The average American will give them money. Turtle-nesting areas in South American are degraded. [The turtles] become lunch for an entire village, and the eggs are forged by feral dogs. Conservation groups don’t see that as a problem. But a fisherman’s logbook shows turtle was caught in 1997, and an entire fishery is shut down. International fleets can catch 10 to 15 turtles in one net.

[The second issue is]: Can [conservation groups] slow down large-corporation nets? They are under the radar and no one knows how to attack them.

Spanish tuna seiners are huge. They are unobstructed at catching sheer metric tons at once. In 10 days they catch as much, or more than, the entire [Hawaiian] hook-and-line fleet catches in a year. It will affect the rest of the Polynesian islands shortly. My grandkids won’t know what a tuna looks like. We’re feeling the effects of the super seiners, and everyone else will, too.

What other challenges does a seafood distributor on a remote island face?

The cost of fuel and surcharges and decreased flight numbers. [An airline] dropping from five to three flights affects us immediately.

The state of Hawaii eats more fish per person than any other state. Our marketplace, being all hook and line and depending upon Mother Nature, is more volatile than the stock market. We can flood the market for several days and be flat. Fuel costs are always higher. Boxes are expensive, so is gel ice. Nothing is produced here, [so everything] has to be imported.

Is there a common misconception about seafood from Hawaii?

People always say [Hawaii seafood] is too expensive, but the more we work with buyers on the mainland, we learn the tuna grades are different. Sushi-grade tuna is on top of our product list. Our fifth-grade tuna beats a lot of second grades on mainland. Grading is such an arbitrary thing. For us, it’s what do you get for your dollar? Our fish is slated to be a raw product, not a cooked product.

People also think we’re only mahi, ahi and swordfish. We run over 30 types of fish each day, and 95 percent of our product is fresh. Each one is handled for sashimi grade and is cherished.

If there was an example of how to fish the oceans, it would be Hawaii Swordfish, thresher, it’s all sold. We are the example of how to fish and have sustainability.

What do you think about country-of-origin-labeling?

Everybody should be required to do it. I’m worried about enforcement. I’ve been in this business 20 years, and even on our price list you’ll see the harvest method and area. I’m frustrated at companies who aren’t [being honest about a product’s origin]. Some days Hawaii day-boat troll mahi is non-existent. [Other suppliers] have some good imported fish, and they’re not afraid of calling it Hawaiian product.

Truth in labeling is way overdue in the seafood industry. People should say it’s frozen if it has been, all the way to the end user.

Enforcement will be tough. There will have to be some teeth, and some will have to get in trouble before its monitored. The U.S. citizen is entitled to protection that way.

Your company hired the George S. May International Co. business consultants earlier this year. What did you learn from May International about your business?

We were always sales focused. They brought it to our attention that we’re 20 years old with a lot of volume. They said: “If you’re more efficient with labor and product you’ll be more profitable.”

It was clear to us [the future of the company] wasn’t just adding sales; a lot of it was efficiency. We hadn’t measured labor to pack a container. It all comes down to getting active, cost-based pricing so you know all of your prices. We thought we were good, but you need to dissect it to a penny.

How will those changes affect the future of Garden &Valley Isle?

We’re definitely going to make sure markets are segmented and divided. We want to be focused in areas we are good at. Some managers have been here over 12 to 13 years. We’re prepared to change with the times.

Do you run your company with a particular business philosophy?

We are fair, honest and want to make sure people get the best-quality fish. We need to make a margin, and we want to treat people the way we want to be treated. It’s about relationships with your customers. We are good at that; we take care of them, and they know it. Some of our buyers don’t even check price with us anymore.

We’re honest to a fault, too. A lot of time you don’t take a high markup, so you don’t make it that week and you lose a little to make sure your regulars aren’t hurt by a spike in the market.

If you could change something about your job, what would it be?

There are two things I’d like to change. I want more time for family. Then I’d like to give more time to let people know there are only two things that will hurt our oceans: nets and pollution agrees that [those things] are bad, we’ll be over a huge hurdle. Conservation groups are beating around the bush.

If we could slow [supereiners] down, it will be a wonderful ocean years from now.

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